120 Hours
by femellerklem
Summary: As the children of the Head Auror, James, Albus, and Lily were used to their father's long missions. But one particular mission in June of 2015 changed everything.
1. Owls

Even though the wind had stopped whistling and the gray clouds hung like heavy sentinels over the silence outside, the little Potter house shone brightly with activity. James, Albus, and little Lily had spent the better part of the afternoon creating a veritable fortress of blankets and pillows in the living room, all in preparation for their father's return that night.

"Now, remember to stay quiet while you wait, alright?" said Ginny as she helped Lily set up a makeshift bed on top of the blankets covering the floor. "I'll need to sleep, and I don't think your father will appreciate being welcomed home by a bunch of sudden loud noises."

"We're not _loud,_ " said James, hastily shoving a Filibuster Firework into his pocket. Ginny shot him a dry look.

"Hand it over," she said. James reluctantly deposited the firework into her outstretched hand. "You know these aren't allowed in the house, James."

"I just wanted to give Dad a grand entrance! Is that too much to ask?" He widened his eyes. "After all that he's done for us?"

His earnest disposition would have fooled anyone else, but after ten years of dealing with his sugar-coated manipulation, Ginny wasn't fazed.

"Yes, it is too much to ask. I don't want your father to come home from a very dangerous raid only to die immediately of a heart attack. Remember last Christmas?"

James sighed. "Uncle Percy was fine, Mum, and he only fainted for ten seconds. If he can survive that, Dad can. 'Cause he's Dad and he can survive anything."

Ginny shook her head fondly. "Well, if not for your dad's sake, then do it for mine. I'd prefer to get some sleep after spending all day wrangling you lot." She ruffled James' hair and kissed his head. He pulled away and grimaced, grumbling something about being _almost eleven years old_ and _way too old to be treated like a baby._

Ginny turned towards Albus and Lily, who had just finished setting up the chess set. "Are you two ready?"

"Yes!" said Albus, beaming. "We've got beds, snacks, Exploding Snap and chess, all of Lily's books with the moving pictures, and Octavius!"

Octavius was the name of a little wooden owl given to Lily by her Uncle George. The owls had been a Wheezes product specifically designed to help students with exam revision (hence the choice of animal). If their user began to fall asleep, the owls flapped their wings, made incessant hooting noises, and, in especially tricky cases, pecked at the shoulders and head of the user until they woke up. Lily had seen the rows of little owls while visiting the shop one day and got so excited by their cuteness that George gave her one on the spot. As much as Albus and James bemoaned the owl's existence (Lily had used Octavius a few too many times to exact revenge on her brothers), they had to admit that he would come in handy for this particular endeavor. Harry didn't usually arrive home from missions until the middle of the night, long after the kids had fallen asleep. Albus wanted to make sure that this time, they were all awake to greet him.

Normally, Ginny would have told the kids to let their father rest and greet him in the morning. After overnight missions, Harry was usually so exhausted that he could do little more than press a kiss to each little forehead before collapsing into bed next to Ginny, only to be woken at an ungodly hour by a stampede of little feet jumping on top of him in greeting. Not that he minded that part, of course. But Harry had been away for nineteen entire days, his longest mission since James was a baby, and Ginny knew her husband would probably be more excited to see the kids first this time than simply fall into bed in exhaustion. It had been too long for all of them, Harry included.

xxx

The sun had almost completely set by the time Ginny finally went to bed, leaving after a particularly dramatic retelling of _The Fountain of Fair Fortune_ from James that had Albus and Lily entranced. It had started to rain outside, but the kids were content to stay awake by themselves, huddled under the blankets with _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ and chocolate raided from Harry's secret kitchen stash.

Lily fell asleep approximately two hours into the stakeout. Octavius tried to wake her up, but James decided that that sort of punishment for sleeping shouldn't be inflicted on any of them, much less a seven-year old, and deactivated the magic owl. Albus, resolutely determined to stay awake until midnight, spent the next few hours pinching himself, eating chocolate, setting off his Exploding Snap cards, and playing chess with James, until the increasingly irritable eldest brother decided that being the first to greet their father wasn't worth his sanity and promptly fell asleep at 11:00.

Albus watched the hands of the clock slowly creep toward midnight with clicks that intermingled perfectly with his siblings' deep breathing. Despite his careful precautions, he found himself struggling more and more to keep his eyes open. _But Dad will wake us up anyway,_ he thought. _We're completely blocking the path from the fireplace. Maybe he'll step on James and that'll serve him right for ignoring my plan._ Sighing contentedly at the thought of seeing his father soon, Albus let his eyes close one more time.

xxx

About two hours later, Ginny felt something shaking her shoulder. She slowly allowed her eyes to open and turned around to see her middle child watching her, his green eyes wide with fright.

"Al, what's wrong?" she said, immediately sitting up and reaching to pull him into her arms.

"I-I fell asleep," he stuttered, looking down at his hands as if that were something shameful. "And I woke up and the clock said 1:45. But Dad's not here! I thought he might be hiding, so I checked all the rooms and closets but I couldn't find him anywhere, and he's not in here either!" As he spoke, Ginny rocked him back and forth, smoothing the slightly sweaty hair off of his forehead in gentle, calming strokes.

"He's just running a little late, Albie, that's all," she said. "He'll probably be here in the morning." Albus snuggled closer as Ginny placed a kiss on top of his head.

But as she comforted her son, Ginny felt a knot of uneasiness tugging at the pit of her stomach. It wasn't like Harry to come home late from missions, especially not one this long.

 _Everything's going to be fine,_ she thought. _He probably had extra paperwork to fill out. Yeah, that's it. Paperwork. Just paperwork._

Albus was just about to fall back asleep when they heard a sharp tap at the window. A large tawny owl gazed at them with fierce yellow eyes as its beak continued to unrelentingly rap on the glass. Gently resting Albus's head on the pillow and tucking the blankets around him, Ginny got up to retrieve the letter tied to the owl's leg. It nipped at her fingers until she opened the letter, drawing blood that blossomed across the crisp parchment and illuminated a word that didn't normally appear on Ministry letters sent to Ginny: _Urgent._

The knot in her stomach tightened as she shakily unfurled the parchment. The message was short, but the words were enough to make Ginny's heart drop. She stood completely still, watching the window as the owl flew off into the darkness, a million thoughts and memories and questions racing through her mind, as though they had been waiting just beneath the surface of her consciousness for this one letter to bring them all flooding back.

"Mummy?" whispered Albus. "Mummy, what does it say?"

Ginny's mind flew back to the bedroom, and she turned around to her son's anxious face. She managed to put on a smile as she bent to kiss his forehead, making sure that the letter was out of his sight.

"Nothing you need to worry about, love," she said. "But you need to get to sleep. Do you want to go back downstairs with Jamie and Lily?"

"No," he murmured. "I want to stay here with you."

xxx

Ginny didn't sleep for the rest of the night. Her mind oscillated between a million different thoughts and memories and worst-case-scenarios, each one more terrifying than the last. She considered going to the Ministry right then and there, but every time she moved, Albus grabbed her in his sleep, as if he could sense that she might leave him, too. All she could think of were those three simple words in that too-neat handwriting across too-crisp, ordinary parchment that had somehow changed her entire future:

 _We regret to inform you that Head Auror Harry Potter has recently been classified as Missing in Action._


	2. Diversion

James and Lily joined Ginny and Albus at sunrise. The warm and welcoming light spilled over the room in stark contrast to their faces. They too had noticed that Harry hadn't returned, and none of Ginny's claims that he must have been held up by paperwork seemed to reassure them.

"Well, why don't we just Floo Aunt Hermione and tell her to help him with his paperwork?" said James. Al and Lily nodded.

"Because you know that his mission was top secret this time, James, so nobody else can help him with the report."

"Well, that's a stupid rule."

"No, it's not!" said Albus. "A secret mission has to stay secret. But if it's a secret mission, Mum, why'd they send you a letter about it?"

Ginny swore inwardly.

"You got a letter and you didn't tell us?" shouted James. "Is it about Dad?"

For the briefest of moments, Ginny considered outright lying to her kids. They were worried enough as it was, and the terrifyingly uncertain letter compounded by the lack of information within wouldn't make anything easier. However, the first rule Harry and Ginny had agreed upon when they found out that Ginny was pregnant was _no lying._ Their kids would grow up always knowing the truth if they asked, and more sensitive questions were only met with "We'll tell you when you're older." It was a necessary precaution with pasts like theirs.

But what could she say to them now? Should she tell them the letter didn't involve Harry at all, or that there was nothing to worry about? She couldn't very well tell them to wait until they were older, especially since the kids had long ago learned to exploit the one-second-older loophole. Accepting that she would have to be as truthful as possible, Ginny sighed and looked up into her children's apprehensive faces.

"There's nothing to worry about just yet," she said. "Your father won't be home as early as we thought, but there's nothing to say that he won't come home. So, in the meantime, we'll just have to be patient."

"But what happened to him?" asked Albus.

"I don't know," said Ginny, only slightly thankful that she could be entirely truthful for once. "But if there's one thing I know about your father, it's that he can get himself out of even the worst situations. And he'll do everything in his power to make it back to us."

The kids didn't look reassured.

"You know what we need?" said Ginny, putting on the best cheerful façade she could muster, "I think we all need a trip to Diagon Alley."

xxx

It took about an hour, but all three kids managed to get dressed, brush their teeth, and Floo to the Leaky Cauldron with only one lost shoe, one overflowing sink, and two minor shouting matches. The kids didn't speak much as they shuffled along the bustling street, but Ginny was confident that Weasley's Wizard Wheezes would be a welcome distraction.

A familiar explosion of noise, color and the slight scent of smoke bombarded them as soon as they opened the now-famous bright purple door embossed with a brilliant orange W. All gloomy pretenses forgotten, James quickly headed over to the section reserved just for explosives, Al chose to watch the pygmy puffs, and Lily became enraptured by a miniature blue dragon flying around inside a glass case and breathing puffs of purple smoke. Content that her kids probably couldn't make the shop more chaotic than it already was, Ginny weaved in between the shelves of exploding cauldrons and invisibility hats to find the back of the store.

Just as she was about to enter the back room, Ginny felt something cold and wet hit her directly in the face, completely soaking her entire head and the front of her shirt. Spluttering and blinking furiously, she opened her eyes just wide enough to see a familiar freckled face grinning at her.

"Hey Ginny," said George. "What do you think of our newest product for June? Water bombs!"

Ginny grinned slyly as she brushed the sopping hair out of her face. "Honestly, it doesn't sound too inventive. Just a ball of water to throw at people? Are you sure you're not losing your edge?"

George laughed. "You underestimate me at your own risk, little sister. Just wait until you see the full array. We've got all different flavors, scents, shapes, and sizes- "

"Where's Ron?"

The urgency of her question appeared to take him slightly by surprise, and his face turned from amused to concerned in a matter of seconds.

"I think he's still in the office. Why? Is something wrong?"

Ginny averted her eyes, cursing her brother's ability to practically read her mind, and began to dry herself off with her wand.

"Not yet. Not unless my little hellions are left unsupervised for too long."

George brightened immediately at the prospect of seeing his niece and nephews, but shot a curious glance towards Ginny as he walked off.

xxx

Ginny opened the back room of the shop to find Ron buried in a mound of papers and test products. She cleared her throat, and he immediately turned around, eager to have any excuse to take a break from the work. His face fell when he noticed her hardened expression.

"Is everything alright?"

Ginny looked around the office. "Can anyone hear us in here?"

"No. Why?"

"We need to talk."

"About…"

Ginny took a deep breath, then handed him the letter. His eyes widened before he even opened it.

"Whose blood is that?!"

"Mine. The stupid owl bit my finger. Just read it, will you?"

He didn't look reassured, and his face fell even further as he read the letter aloud in a low voice. " _We regret to inform you that Head Auror Harry Potter has recently been classified as Missing in Action. Please await our owls for further information. Signed Liza Proctor, Deputy Head Auror_ " He looked up, seemingly at a loss for words. "Ginny- "

"What I would like to know-" she said, coming to stand beside him and take the letter from his hands- "is why they didn't bother to send an actual person to tell me what the hell is going on. You are an ex-Auror. You know the protocol. Tell me, why did I receive nothing more than a two-sentence long note when my husband, Head Auror _Harry Potter_ , has somehow vanished off the face of the Earth? And how in the name of Merlin did they lose track of the Head Auror?"

Ron looked as though he hadn't even heard her question. "I don't remember anyone going missing in all the years I was there. And Harry- Harry was the best…"

"Don't you dare say 'was.' They would have told me if he really was, you know-"

She couldn't bring herself to say the words, but Ron nodded, though he avoided her eyes. "There were so many ways the department kept contact with us in the field, especially undetectable ways that Dark wizards wouldn't know to remove…"

"But if the Department keeps in contact with Aurors in the field, how did Harry go missing?"

"Well, this was a Top-Secret mission, wasn't it?"

Ginny nodded.

"On Top-Secret missions, the Ministry has almost no regular contact. No progress reports, no nothing. Nothing that could potentially give away their position. That's why they only send the most experienced Aurors, like Harry, out on those missions."

"But couldn't he have called for backup or something?"

"On missions like these, Aurors only call for backup if it's absolutely a life-or-death situation and there are no other options. And because Harry's a noble idiot, I'd bet you a thousand galleons he didn't call. I think Kingsley actually promoted him to Head so he would stop thinking he was just some disposable little martyr." He blinked and looked away. "That's part of the reason I left, you know. All the secrecy. There was an incident, maybe three years after the war, when an ex-Death Eater got his hands on one of our Emergency Portkeys and almost managed to infiltrate the Ministry. After that, everyone got so paranoid they might have made it more dangerous for us, if that was even possible."

"But you said no one's ever gone missing before."

"No. At least, not after the war."

Ginny groaned and began to pace the length of the room. "I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. The Head Auror goes missing, the department doesn't know if he's dead or alive, they know he has a wife and three children at home, and they send a bloody _owl._ They had no problem sending three Aurors to the house after that chimaera incident while I was pregnant with James to go over all the gory details. Was it so hard to stop by and tell us what's happening?"

"Harry is missing and you're upset about the owl? Your cut didn't even look that bad-"

Ginny turned back to him with an exasperated look. "Ron. I am used to Harry going on missions. I've been doing this whole waiting in the dark thing since I was sixteen years old. I am perfectly aware of the fact that Harry can take care of himself. Which is why I don't appreciate being kept in the dark when something actually has gone wrong."

"Ginny, I think it's because they don't know what else to say. With injuries, or deaths, the Auror in question is always, well, there. They know what happened and they know how everything's going to turn out. This is different. So I think you should just do what the letter says and wait for more information."

" _Wait_ for information? Who are you and what have you done with my brother? Don't you even care what happens to Harry?"

"My best friend is missing, Ginny, of course I care! I'm just saying that unless you're planning on going after him yourself- which would be really bloody stupid by the way- the best thing to do is wait for the Ministry to do their job. I'm sure they already have a team looking for him. Nowadays, they do know what they're doing most of the time, you know."

"They literally just lost track of their Head Auror."

"Well, yeah, but…the Aurors themselves are great. And they're not run by Death Eaters anymore…"

"Thanks, Ron. That really makes me feel reassured."

"No, Ginny, what I'm trying to say is that even after the new security measures for undercover missions, this is the first time this has happened, and not only that, but obviously the Head Auror isn't there to deal with it. I don't think it's entirely the department's fault."

Ginny turned and started heading towards the door. "Well, I'm going to the Ministry right now to find out what happened. I know someone who might just tell us everything. You should come, too. You know, to back me up."

"Ginny, they're not going to tell you anything- "

"All the more reason for you to come with me. You can be the reliable ex-Auror, and I can use my Potter status. Harry and I agreed we'd only use it in life-threatening situations."

" _Only_ in life-threatening situations? I'd use it all the time if I could."

"You do know our family, right? With James it's practically an everyday occurrence."

xxx

After leaving the kids with George and making them promise to stay in the back room with him and not cause any trouble, Ginny practically ran to the Leaky Cauldron with Ron right behind her. They ignored the stares and vaguely concerned looks from the other patrons before stepping into the swirl of green flames, hoping that the roar of the fire would be enough to conceal their destination from the crowd.

Ginny nearly fell out of the Ministry Floo in her haste. Ron reached out to steady her, but she shrugged him off, nearly running towards the elevators. The familiar hallways became a blur as she brushed past the hordes of faceless bodies meandering along on their own much less urgent missions. Voices blended together into a dull roar that permeated her mind. She only had ears for one voice now. A voice she fruitlessly hoped to hear as she found herself standing outside the thick, black door to the Auror Headquarters.

Ron stepped forward first and placed his hand on part of the door marked for non-Aurors. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a little window appeared inside the door, revealing a familiar head of long, dark hair, and tired, yet somehow vivid grey eyes. The eyes glanced over to Ginny and immediately took on a look of exasperated pity, as if she had been waiting for Ginny to show up. Ginny narrowed her eyes.

"Don't give me that look, Ellie. Just tell us what's going on. Please?"

Ellie sighed. "Just get inside quickly or I'll get in trouble." She glanced quickly behind her, then murmured something under her breath. The door opened to reveal a long, wood-paneled hallway filled with office doors. Ellie beckoned them inside and into the very first office. She waved her wand, locking the door and summoning two extra chairs over to the desk. Ron and Ginny sat down, and after casting an imperturbable spell on the door, Ellie practically collapsed into the chair across from them.

Ellie Cattermole was a young but promising junior Auror whom Harry had personally taught during her last year of training. She had been by his side ever since, assisting on raids, helping with reports, and often acting as his secretary for secretive information and announcements. Before he quit after Hugo was born, Ron had been Harry's right hand within the department. Now, most considered Ellie to hold that position, even though she had only been officially hired five years before. In those five years, Ginny had come to know Ellie quite well, and the two were very fond of each other.

But now, Ellie's typically lively demeanor had been replaced with utter exhaustion. She slumped over in her chair, holding her face in her hands as her tangled hair spilled over the desk. When she looked back up at Ginny, her eyes were bloodshot.

"I know what you're going to ask," she said, "but I can't tell you what happened or where he is. Believe me, if I could get any more information, I would. I interrogated Liza for an hour, but we still don't know."

"You'd think the deputy Head Auror would run a tighter ship," said Ginny. "Wasn't it her job to keep track of them?"

"Yes and no. It was Top-Secret, so we aren't allowed to track their actual position or contact them in any way during the mission, just in case. All we had was a mission objective and a scheduled end date. However, we can track Aurors if things really go downhill, mainly if the team gets separated or they don't return on time, both of which happened with Harry. But when we went to track him down, we had his position for a few seconds, and then he disappeared. It looked like he just vanished off the face of the Earth."

Ginny covered her mouth with one hand and closed her eyes. Ron gripped the armrests of his chair so tightly his knuckles turned white. Ellie looked, most unusually for her, on the verge of tears.

"How many were with him?" asked Ron, leaning forward in his seat.

"Two others," said Ellie. "But you didn't hear that from me." She gave them a knowing look. "And I can't say who they were. They both returned a day early with minimal injuries. Neither of them have any idea what happened to Harry."

Ron swore under his breath.

"But how is that possible?" said Ginny. "They were with him the whole time, weren't they?"

Ellie sighed and rubbed a hand over her face, as if she were trying to delay the next bit of information for as long as she could. "According to them," she started, refusing to look Ron and Ginny in the eyes, "there was an incident. A bad one. They refused to tell me exactly what happened. All they said was that one minute, Harry was there and the next he was gone. Harry was already missing for an entire day when you got the letter. We always wait that long before letting the family know, just in case he turns up."

Ginny had nearly doubled over, her breathing rapid. Ron wrapped his arm around her and said, "Did you get a backup call from him? Patronus? Emergency Portkey?" Ellie shook her head. "A Green Call?"

"What's a Green Call?" asked Ginny.

"It's a way to call for help even if you've lost your wand," said Ellie. "But Aurors rarely have to use it."

"But if he hasn't called for help at all, then he must be- "

"He's not dead," said Ellie at last. Ginny's head shot up, relief and cautious hope coursing through her.

"How do you know?" she asked in a shaky voice. But Ron's eyes had grown wide with understanding.

"We have a way of knowing, with Aurors, at least," said Ellie. "We have to know when someone gets killed in action, because sometimes the whole team goes down. If Harry… had been killed, we would have known. And we would have told you."

"You could have at least told me he was still alive in your letter, though," said Ginny, her voice taking on a steely edge. "Why didn't you?"

Ellie rolled her eyes and rubbed her hands over her face again. "Because Liza doesn't believe in offering false hope. She thinks that just because most Aurors that have gone missing don't come back, we should pretend that going missing is a death sentence entirely. I tried to reason with her, but she's Deputy Head Auror, so she makes the rules. Though I wouldn't have put any of the other information I just told you in the letter, either. We can't risk an owl interception, even without a war going on. And we didn't tell you in person because every one of us has to be either out searching, tracking, or sleeping. We didn't have time to tell you in person, and Liza didn't want anyone to leave Headquarters, just in case. If I could have told you myself, I would have."

Ron looked at her, confused. "But Harry knows the protocol for a forced separation." He turned to Ginny. "If you're out in the field, and you get forcibly separated from your team- which is what I'm assuming happened to Harry- the first plan of action is to reveal your position to Headquarters, even if the mission is Top-Secret. It's an almost undetectable non-verbal spell, so why hasn't he- Ellie, are you okay?"

Ellie was furiously wiping at her eyes, avoiding their concerned stares in stony silence. Without looking up, she said, "There's something else you should know, too. But promise you won't tell this to _anyone._ If anyone finds out that I showed you this, I will lose my job. They're entrusting me with evidence related to Harry, but I was going to call you in anyway, just to confirm…" she trailed off and opened the top drawer of her desk, pulling out a slim envelope. "This is all the search efforts have turned up so far. And it might explain why he hasn't called for help. But- " her voice took on her usual commanding tone- "I'm going to remind you that he is still alive."

"So you think there's a chance he might still come back?" Ginny's voice was smaller than Ellie had ever thought possible.

"There's always a chance," she said. "As long as we can confirm that his heart is still beating. Luckily, we're not muggles. When they go missing in action, their families don't know anything. And some never learn." She took a breath. "We just have to hope for the best but expect the worst. It's the first thing they tell you at Auror training." She looked at Ron. "It makes the whole process slightly more bearable, especially when they find evidence like this."

Ginny took her face out of her hands and leaned forward, a frighteningly determined expression on her face. "Ellie," she said, all vulnerability in her voice forgotten. "With all due respect, open the damn envelope."

Ellie sighed, unable to stall any longer. Her wand shook in her hand as she magically opened the envelope so as not to sully the evidence inside. When the contents were finally revealed, Ginny's face turned stark white. She froze in her seat, her eyes bulging. Ron looked liable to vomit.

"They found it yesterday, near the last place he was seen," said Ellie in a choked voice.

Ginny bent forward and covered her face again, her breathing coming out in short, bursting gasps. Ron grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly, unable to take his eyes off the desk, where Harry's wand sat motionless and fragile, and, for the first time in all Harry's years as an Auror, completely and utterly powerless.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hey everyone! Sorry I didn't do author's notes on the last chapter; I was in a bit of a rush to get it posted. As of right now, it's probably going to be about six chapters long. I do have the story planned out, including the ending, so this will get finished eventually. Hopefully before I leave for school again at the end of August (at least that's the plan), so stay tuned!


	3. Fire

**A/N:** This one's a bit longer than usual and changes perspectives slightly. Hope it was worth the wait.

* * *

Breakfast the next morning was uncharacteristically quiet. Ginny hadn't told James, Albus, and Lily about what had happened in the Ministry, but not even a day spent at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and a trip to Fortescue's ice cream parlor could quell the disappointment that everyone felt upon finding the house still empty. Dinner hadn't gone well either, since Ginny's cooking had never been on par with Harry's (leading to a minor stressed-induced tantrum from Lily), and Albus spent the entire meal exhausting her with questions she couldn't answer. After the umpteenth utterance of "No, I'm sure he's not dead," "nothing you need to worry about," and "I honestly don't know," Ginny had foolishly suggested that maybe if they went to bed early enough, Harry would be there in the morning.

Ginny found Lily and Albus at sunrise. Lily was fast asleep on the living room sofa, wrapped in a set of Harry's robes that he had forgotten to put away before leaving and that the kids had refused to let her move. Albus had fallen asleep against the window. By the time James stumbled out of bed a few hours later (that boy had _never_ been an early riser), nobody was in the mood for positivity or conversation. Or toast, evidently.

"Lily, you need to eat your breakfast," said Ginny. "Do you want some marmalade?"

"No. I want Dad home," she said, poking holes in her toast with the butter knife. "I _miss_ him."

Ginny sighed. "He'll be home soon," she said.

"How soon?"

"Soon enough," she said, though her eyes remained fixed on the wall. Albus noticed her slightly uncertain expression and scowled.

"How do you know?" he asked.

Ginny sighed again. "I just do. Now, you lot need to finish your breakfast so we can get to the Burrow, because I still need to go to work today."

Albus sat straight up his chair. "But what if Dad comes home and we're not here?"

"Everything will be fine," Ginny repeated.

"Then can we come to work with you in case Dad shows up there?"

"You'll have stay locked in my office all day while I go to meetings. So no."

"I don't care if I'm locked in your office!"

Ginny reached up and massaged her temple. "Albus Severus, _please_ don't make this more difficult than it already is. You are going to the Burrow, and that's final. Now, are you going to cooperate?"

"Yes," Albus mumbled while picking at his toast.

"Excellent choice. Lily? James?"

Their nods were almost invisible.

xxx

They arrived at the Burrow to find Arthur reading the Daily Prophet in his chair by the fireplace and Molly doing something in the kitchen. Arthur greeted them warmly, but his face fell as he noticed the looks upon his grandchildren's faces. All three were actively avoiding his eyes. James was scowling at the ground, and Albus was scuffling his feet, the way he always did when he was nervous. Lily looked downright miserable.

He began to ask what had happened, but Ginny shot him a look that was somehow both frantic and threatening. He immediately put two and two together and stopped talking, just as Molly walked into the room. She immediately picked up on the situation and was tactful enough not to ask questions, choosing instead to give each grandchild a piece of the gingerbread that had just finished baking. James finished his in two bites without asking for another (the surest sign yet that something was off), and Albus and Lily merely nibbled without eating.

Arthur quickly stood and set his paper on the side table. "You know, I could really use some help out in the shed today. Why don't you three head outside and I'll join you later? I can show you the muggle water gun that I found! It's plastic!"

Molly sighed quietly. James, Albus, and Lily didn't exactly share their grandfather's enthusiasm, but at the stern look from their mother, they headed outside and into the crowded shed. James and Lily immediately began digging through a box of bicycle parts, but Albus was rummaging around in his pocket. Neither James nor Lily noticed the little flesh-colored ball he was holding until he was halfway back to the house.

Albus crouched underneath the living room window, as close as he could possibly get without his mother and grandparents noticing, and put the little ball into his ear. But before he could hear what he wanted to hear, a much closer voice spoke in a fierce whisper.

"What are you _doing?_ "

Albus jumped and spun around.

"James! Go away!"

"No! Wait- " he noticed the little ball that Albus now clutched tightly to his head- "is that- that's a cordless Extendable Ear! You stole from Uncle George!"

"I did not! He said I could have one free thing yesterday, so I picked these. I put the other one in Mum's pocket so I could find out what _really_ happened to Dad."

James rolled his eyes. "Dad's going to be _fine_ , Albus."

"Well then why did Grandad stay to talk to Mum? I bet they're talking about Dad, and if you could just _shut up_ for two seconds I could listen!"

"You can't tell me to shut up!"

"I can and I will!"

"No, you- "

"Shhh!" Albus frantically put a hand over James's mouth as voices came through the fake ear. All arguments forgotten, James leaned in close to listen to the muddled sounds. Their Gran's voice came though first.

"…just can't believe they couldn't tell you anything. And you said they don't even know where he _might_ be?"

"No! Like I said, he apparently just vanished off the face of the Earth!"

"But how is that even possible?" said Arthur. "I was tracked on raids, and I worked for Misuse of Muggle Artifacts!"

"They did track him, he just disappeared. In real time!"

"I just can't believe it," said Arthur. "It seems like all the news took a turn for the worst this week. The Head of Magical Law Enforcement announced her resignation, right in the middle of negotiations over centaur territory _and_ that deliberately faulty potion scandal. And did you hear about that village up in Durham? Sources were saying it may have been Fiendfyre!"

There was a collective gasp.

"Do they know the number of casualties?" whispered Ginny.

"No, but some people were hurt, definitely. All they said was that the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes got there right away. And thank goodness for that, because that fire could have tripled in size in less than half an hour."

"Ginny," said Molly, "you don't think Harry- "

"No," said Ginny firmly. "A mission that long had to have been out of the country. I have no idea where he was going or where he disappeared, but he's not- he can't have…"

There was a terrible pause, throughout which James and Albus sat perfectly still against the side of the house, hardly daring to breathe. After some time, Ginny spoke again.

"I really should get to work. I'll see you for dinner." And with a pause, a few footsteps, and the roar of the Floo, she was gone.

Albus slowly took the piece of ear out of his own and looked at James. The two brothers stared at each other for what felt like hours, only vaguely aware of their grandparents' agitated voices coming from inside.

"We should go back to the shed," whispered Albus. "They might come out and find us."

"Good idea," said James.

As soon as they were back in the shed, Albus rounded on James, careful to keep his voice low to avoid attracting the attention of their grandparents.

"I told you!" he said. "I told you it was something bad!"

"It's not bad," James whispered fiercely. "And keep your voice down! You're going to scare Lily."

Albus glanced over to their sister, who was sitting on the floor and playing with a flying remote-control car, clearly ignoring them. Evidently, seven years of listening to James and Albus's arguments had significantly heightened her ability to tune them out. Albus kept his voice down anyway.

"When will you stop pretending that everything is going to be okay when it's not?" he hissed.

"I'm not pretending that things are okay!" said James.

"Well, you're really bad at showing it."

"And you're worried over nothing!"

"Dad's missing, James!"

Albus spoke a little louder than he intended, and both boys turned around to find Lily staring at them with an unreadable expression on her face.

"Daddy's missing?" she whispered.

James nodded slowly.

"But why?" she asked, her lower lip trembling. James glared at Albus, who glared right back.

"We don't know," said James. "But there's nothing to be worried about, at least not yet."

"Don't lie!" said Albus, finally exploding. "You don't know! You don't know what happened to him! He could've been poisoned, or attacked by a monster, or caught in that fire, or kidnapped! What if somebody took his memory and he's forgotten all about us? What if he's de- "

"He's. Not," said James through gritted teeth, glancing at Lily. Albus detected a flicker of uncertainty cross his face before it became a mask of indignation once again. "He's going to come back."

"How do you know?" said Lily. James sighed.

"You two were both too little to remember this, but when I was five, Dad came back with one of his worst injuries ever. It was…it was horrible."

He sat down on the bench underneath the dusty window and stared at the ground, as if he'd forgotten that anyone else was there. Albus and Lily listened carefully as James took a deep breath and continued.

"He came back from his mission, and they took him straight to St. Mungo's. We had to wait days before they let us see him. I remember Aunt Hermione hugging Mum right before we went into his room. They said- they said we could all go in because they didn't know if Dad was going to make it, and they wanted us to have the chance to…say goodbye."

Lily was crying freely now, and Albus reached out to put his arm around her.

"I remember the room like it was yesterday," said James. "The window was stained glass, for some reason- this really ugly stained glass in the shape of the sun- and I remember the light hitting the floor in these moving yellow and green dots, and then I saw Dad. He was half-poisoned, he'd splinched himself so he was bleeding pretty badly, they must've hit him with some really bad curses because his face was so pale and greenish, his eyes were purple and one was swollen shut and his legs were basically shattered…and he couldn't even talk. He just held my hand and looked at me out of the one eye, and that was probably scarier than anything else. But you know what?"

"What?" whispered Lily.

"He got better. He _lived_. They wouldn't tell me everything that happened to him because I was too little, but I knew enough to know that it was really bad. I've never seen Mum that upset. Aunt Hermione cried every time she saw me. But he lived. He came back stronger than ever, and now you can hardly tell that that happened. And if Dad can survive getting injured that badly, he can survive disappearing for a day. He knows what he's doing. He's _Harry Potter_. He's our dad. And he's going to come back."

Albus wanted to argue. Not only because he hated letting James get the last word in any situation, but because James was wrong. If their dad was missing, he could be badly injured, and nobody would ever find him until it was too late. He could turn up one day and not recognize them. He could be dead. What other explanations were there? Albus felt his stomach roll at the thought. He watched James with careful severity, unwilling to let their argument go, but also unwilling to say anything else in front of Lily, who was now sniffling against his shirt.

"I wish Teddy was here," she said, finally breaking the awful silence. "Can't we write to him?"

"I don't think we should," said Albus. "Mum said he's really busy studying for his exams right now, and I don't think we should bother him before he gets back."

"But Teddy always knows what to say," said James.

"Well- "

But Albus's thought was interrupted by the squeaking of the door, which eventually revealed the face of their grandfather. He gazed at them softly, his face a mix of love, concern, and somehow, bemusement. Albus stared back at him, slightly confused, until he pulled the other half of the Extendable Ear out of his pocket. James groaned quietly, and Albus felt his face heat up.

"How much did you hear?" asked Arthur. His voice wasn't stern, as Albus had expected, but rather concerned and decidedly unsurprised.

"Just the part about Dad going missing and the- uh, the fire," said James. "And it was just me and Al, not Lily."

Arthur nodded.

"Is Daddy going to come home?" whispered Lily. Arthur bent down and hugged her.

"Everything is going to be alright. I promise," he said, stroking her hair. "Is there anything that would make you three feel better?" Lily shook her head. "How about some more of your Gran's gingerbread? I know that would make her feel better."

Lily hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

"Alright. Why don't you go back to the house while I have a talk with your brothers?" he said. "And just between the four of us, I think it's best not to tell Gran what you heard. She's worried enough as it is. It'll be our little secret, alright?"

The kids nodded. As Lily shut the door of the shed behind her, Arthur turned back to James and Albus.

"Sorry for eavesdropping," said James. "It was all Al's idea, not mine."

Albus opened his mouth to argue, but Arthur held up his hand.

"I'm not upset with you, and I understand why you did it, but your mother was not too happy," he said.

"Why didn't Mum tell us?" asked James, as though he'd been holding in the question for days.

Arthur sighed. "Your mother wanted to keep things as normal as possible for you. That's why she went into work today. That's why she didn't tell you herself that the Aurors don't know where your dad is. We wanted you to think that this was just an unexpectedly long mission, because that's essentially what it is. Nobody knows anything about what's going on, so there's no use worrying any more than you usually would. They can't track him, but that doesn't have to mean he's in danger."

"But his raids _are_ dangerous," said James. Albus nodded in a rare display of agreement.

"Any more danger than usual, then. Your mother doesn't want you to be scared. Your father is- "

But he was interrupted by a burst of white light hurtling into the room and covering everything in a bright and silvery glow. Very slowly, the ball of light began to change shape, and as it became more defined, Albus realized that it was a patronus in the shape of a rabbit.

"Arthur Weasley, Code 357. Repeat: Code 357," said the rabbit, before dissolving on the spot. Arthur sighed and rolled his eyes, mumbling something about _damn Fletcher and his overly-dramatic messages._

"Well, it looks like I have to go into the Ministry," he said. "Why don't you two go join your sister in the kitchen? And don't forget about the talk we just had!" he called as Albus and James raced each other out of the shed.

After being fussed over by Molly once again, Albus and James asked if they could go flying. Molly agreed, albeit somewhat reluctantly, but warned the boys to keep close to the house where she could see them and not to do anything too dangerous.

It didn't take long for James to suggest the opposite.

"Wanna race, Al?" he asked. Albus, never one to give on an opportunity to beat his brother, enthusiastically agreed.

"But we have to stay close to the house," Albus said. "Let's go from the shed to that tree over there."

The race got off to a good start, with Albus only slightly behind James. Since they weren't using their own brooms, but rather the old brooms from when their mother was little, Albus found it slightly more difficult to stay in control. It wouldn't have been a problem, had James not decided to extend the race at the last minute (because Albus was a little too close on his tail), flying straight past the tree that had been their agreed-upon end point. Albus, never one to lose in favor of following the rules, kept flying as well.

He immediately regretted his decision. The broom, which was slightly too big for Albus anyway, began to jerk and sway in the strengthening wind. Albus kept lower to the ground, swerving as well as he could through the thickening trees. James was nowhere to be seen. In a split second, Albus felt the tail of his broom hit a branch of some kind, and before he knew it, he was sprawled on the ground, groaning, with his ribs slightly bruised and a long scratch cutting across the side of his face.

"Are you alright?"

The voice did not belong to James. Albus immediately jumped to his feet, heart racing, and froze.

Standing in front of him was not a Death Eater, or a monster, but rather, a young girl about his age. Her hair was tied in two thick black braids, and she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that had been ripped and singed. In fact, the girl's entire face was covered with soot and dirt, and her hair was matted and tangled with leaves. Her eyes, a dark chocolate brown, were wide with fright and concern. Most curiously of all, she was holding a strange black object in the shape of a small hourglass that looked like something Albus had seen before, though he couldn't remember where.

Albus slowly nodded. "I'm fine," he said, looking up at the sky for James, who remained elusive.

"Were you- were you _flying?_ " she asked. "On a _broomstick?"_ She said the words as though she had never heard of such a thing before. Albus felt a horrible realization surge through him.

"Uh…what's your name?" he asked.

"Rebecca. What's yours?"

"Al."

" _Al._ Is that short for something?"

"No. Just Al."

"Oh," she fidgeted with the funny object.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, a little more forcefully than intended. "And what happened to you?"

"I-I don't really know," she said, her brow furrowed in concentration. "There was a fire, and one minute I was running, but the fire was everywhere, and then this man found me and all of a sudden we were in the woods. There was another man chasing us, but the nice man gave me this black thing and some kind of drink and told me to keep running, so I did. Then, all of a sudden, I was here. Hey, do you know about a tall house somewhere around here? He said it would take a while to walk there, but if I kept walking north and made it to the little town, I'd find a tall house close by."

"You mean the Burrow?" Albus asked before he could stop himself. Rebecca shook her head.

"He didn't say anything about a burrow, so I don't think so."

"Oh, well, I'm going to take you there anyway. My Gran's there and she can help clean you up. It's a tall house, so it might even be the one you're looking for."

Rebecca looked nervous for a moment, then slowly nodded. Albus picked up his broom, and they began walking home as the searing midday sun bore down upon them.

"Why are you all alone?" asked Albus, wiping the sweaty hair off of his forehead, "Where's your family?"

"It's just me and my dad at home," she said. "He was at the store when the fire came, and now I don't know where he is. It's scary; he's never been away this long before. I really miss him."

"I don't know where my dad is, either," said Albus. "I miss him, too."

xxx

They walked in silence for the rest of the way back. When they arrived at the house, Molly descended upon them immediately, fussing over them and asking question after question at a pace impossible to match. Luckily, Albus managed to pull his grandmother aside and tell her about Rebecca's apparent lack of experience with magic before she took out her wand, but that didn't stop Rebecca from noticing the moving photos on the mantle or the noise of cooking coming from the supposedly empty kitchen.

When Rebecca had successfully washed most of the soot out of her hair, she sat down with a piece of Molly's gingerbread (after Albus assured her that they weren't about to poison her), doing her best to recount her story and answer all their questions.

"How long ago was the fire?" asked Molly.

"The day before yesterday," said Rebecca. "I've been walking for a whole day and night."

Molly gasped. "A whole day…and _night?_ You must be famished! Wait one minute; I'll get you some real food."

Within one minute, Rebecca was hastily devouring potatoes and sausages while Molly and the kids watched her apprehensively.

"What did the man who helped you look like?" asked James.

"I don't really remember," said Rebecca. "I just remember him giving me this- " she fiddled with the strange black thing- "and telling me to run. I think there was another man too, but I don't remember what he looked like or what he was doing."

"So, you don't remember anything that happened after the fire started?"

"Well, it was all kind of confusing. I don't really know what happened, even the stuff I do remember. It all happened so fast…" she trailed off, and to his horror, Albus noticed tears forming in her eyes.

"It's alright, dear, you don't have to talk anymore," said Molly softly. "Do you need anything else?"

Rebecca shook her head. "I just want- "

A loud crack reverberated throughout the room, making them all jump and turn towards the sound. Arthur stepped through the front door, his glasses slightly lopsided.

"A magically enhanced oven, of all things. And on a weekend! It shouldn't have been too much for them to handle- all they had to do was prove that it couldn't have caused that fire, which should have been easy, since the oven was charmed to avoid the problem of a fire in the first place! I don't understand how wizards are still so scared of muggle technology when Fiendfyre is staring them in the face- "

He stopped talking abruptly as he noticed Rebecca. His eyes sought Molly, who rushed over and explained everything to him in hurried whispering. His posture tensed.

"Rebecca," he asked softly, "are you from Durham?"

She nodded. "How do you know?"

"The fire's been all over the news," said Arthur. "We just heard- " he noticed the strange black device in her hands. "What's that you're holding?"

She held it out for him to see. At first, Albus recognized an excited glint in his grandfather's eye- the same one he got whenever he found a new muggle object. But as soon as he got a good look, his face turned ashen.

"What is it, Grandad?" asked James.

Arthur stood still for a moment, unable to make a sound. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. "That's…that's an Emergency Portkey from the Ministry. For Aurors. I had one when we raided Lucius Malfoy's house during the war…" he trailed off, staring incredulously at Rebecca. "You said someone gave it to you?"

She nodded, equally confused. "What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means," he said slowly, "that I'm going to have to take you to London."

xxx

It took some pleading, but Albus eventually convinced his grandad to let him come along as well. Rebecca was noticeably nervous about going to London alone with Arthur, and Albus, though he'd only known her for about an hour, calmed her immensely.

They took the train to London since Rebecca adamantly refused to use Floo Powder. Arthur had luckily become slightly more familiar with the muggle train system after the war (thanks to Hermione), but it still took longer than expected to reach the secluded phone booth in the middle of London. When they finally reached the atrium of the Ministry, the traces of fear disappeared from Rebecca's eyes in favor of pure awed wonder. Arthur had to remind her constantly to stay close, as she chased after interdepartmental memos, became mesmerized by the enchanted weather in the windows, and pointed out all the funniest hats, much to Albus's amusement.

They took the lift to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes on Level Three of the Ministry. Arthur spoke quickly to the wizard at the front desk, and soon they were being led to a door at the very end of the corridor marked _Pre-Obliviation._ Albus grabbed onto his grandfather's hand. While he knew it was a necessary precaution when dealing with muggles, he found the idea of obliviation exceptionally creepy, especially now that it concerned someone he'd actually met. Arthur gave Albus's hand a reassuring squeeze as they entered the room.

It looked like silent chaos.

At least a dozen people sat, wide-eyed, on plush sofas and armchairs strewn about the room. Department workers in bright scarlet robes weaved in and out among the people in chairs, administering what appeared to be a sort of calming draught and speaking to the muggles in soothing voices. It made Albus feel uneasy, though he didn't quite know why. He was just about to ask his grandfather why they were here when a woman with straight blonde hair and glasses came up to them.

"Hello, Arthur. Albus," she said, smiling. Albus didn't even wonder how she knew his name. "And you must be Rebecca."

Rebecca nodded as the woman knelt down to her level.

"I'm Lena, and I'm in charge of taking care of all the people that were hurt in the fire."

"Like my dad? Do you have my dad?" Rebecca's eyes were wide with frightened hope.

"Yes, we do, but he's being treated for burns right now. In fact, you have quite a few yourself, so I'm going to send you to Eric over there, and we'll get those looked at, alright?" Rebecca nodded and went off to see one of the scarlet-robed workers. Lena turned her attention back to Arthur. Her gaze had gone from soft and reassuring to calculating in a matter of seconds.

"How did you find her?" she asked.

Albus immediately jumped into the story of how he and Rebecca had met in the woods, how she had been walking for an entire day before finding them, how she had somehow escaped from the fire with the help of a stranger and unknowingly taken some kind of portkey that he gave her. At this, Lena asked to see the portkey. When Arthur gave it to her, her eyes widened.

"Well, we know she met a wizard, and probably an Auror. There were Aurors stationed nearby when the fire started, so I'm assuming it was one of them. Only Aurors use these now. I wish there was a way to tell who enchanted it, but unfortunately, Emergency Portkeys lose all trace of enchantments as soon as they're used. We'll take this back to the Auror office, just in case they can tell us anything."

"Can I just ask one question?" said Arthur. "Why did you bring all the muggles here? Why not obliviate at the scene, like usual?"

Lena sighed. "Fiendfyre burns can only be treated magically, and for catastrophes like this, it is our duty to help as many people as possible. Some of them had to be taken to St. Mungo's, but the ones with more minor injuries came here. There were just too many of them to all be treated and obliviated on-scene, so we're keeping them here before sending them back home to be obliviated."

Albus felt his stomach churn. "So, she won't remember us?"

Lena shook her head. "Unfortunately, no. But it has to be that way, Albus."

He slowly nodded, but his thoughts were interrupted by a shriek. Albus looked around and noticed that a man had just entered the room, and Rebecca was running towards him. She leapt into his arms with a cry of "Daddy!" and held on tight. The man looked terrified to let her go. He sank to his knees, still holding her, and cradled her head, whispering inaudible words of comfort into her ear.

Albus felt his stomach give a painful jolt. As relieved as he was that Rebecca had found her father, he couldn't help being reminded of his own dad. He and James and Lily used to run to their dad and jump into his arms just like that, especially when they were little enough to all be held at the same time. Harry used to hug them tight and press kisses all over their faces until they shrieked with laughter, clamoring to hear the stories from his latest mission. Each time, the pure joy that everyone in the family felt during those moments was more than enough to outweigh all the nights of waiting, of listening for the roar of the Floo or watching the window for a sign of black hair coming up the front walkway. All the time spent praying that no bad news would come while counting down the weeks, and then the days, and then the hours.

It made him feel absolutely disgusted with himself, but as Albus watched Rebecca reunite with her father, he couldn't help but wish that it could be _his_ dad instead. A gaping hole seemed to eat away at his chest, one that he hadn't noticed before this moment. He felt his eyes grow moist and hastily wiped at them, rubbing furiously until they were red and raw. Still holding tightly to his grandfather's hand, he turned away from the heartwarming scene and trained his eyes on the floor, doing his best to ignore the little flame of resentment that had taken root in the pit of his stomach.

xxx

It was nearly dinnertime when Albus and his grandfather arrived back at the Burrow. After asking a slew of questions about the trip to the Ministry, Molly went outside in the garden, while Arthur joined James and Lily in a game of Exploding Snap. Normally, Albus would have been happy to join in, but tonight, he was in no mood for games. Instead, he found himself in the kitchen, watching the giant clock on the wall.

The clock at Gran and Grandad Weasley's had been crowded for a long time. By the time Albus was old enough to remember reading it, Lily and Hugo had already been born, bringing the clock's hand count to twenty-six. Today, all the adults clustered around Work, while Victoire, Dominique, Fred, and Louis's hands jostled for a place under School. The rest of the cousins were all at Home, as well as Uncle Fred, whose hand had been at Home for as long as Albus could remember. But at that moment, Albus only cared about one hand. The one person on the clock that shared his eyes. The hand that remained detached from all the others, trapped under Mortal Peril. Albus sat backwards on a kitchen chair and gripped the back tightly, staring intently at the clock, as if to catch the exact moment his father's face moved to Traveling. He didn't even notice that someone was in the room until he felt his grandmother's hand on his back.

"Watching the clock won't make you feel better," she said. "And believe me, I've had a lot of experience."

Albus pressed his mouth into the back of the chair and scowled, hating the fact that she was right. But he let his grandmother rub his back and smooth his hair as he mumbled into the wood.

"I'm just tired of waiting," he said.

"I know. I am, too. But you know what? Waiting goes by a lot faster when you don't waste time dwelling on it. And I could really use a helper while I make dinner. Does that sound good?"

Reluctantly, Albus nodded, and turned away from the clock to help his grandmother peel potatoes, trying and failing not to think about his father's face on the clock and whether or not he would ever see the real one again.

xxx

And somewhere, with trembling hands caked in blood and blisters, an invisible man in a callous, sharp-edged room holds on to a little photograph of the four most important people in the world. Trying not to forget the sound of their laughter or the perfect feeling of holding them in his arms, he stares into his middle child's identical eyes: his mother's eyes- a reminder of why he's here. It's a position he's all too familiar with, thinking of their names and faces on repeat, and hoping that by some miracle, they might feel him thinking about them, too.

 _I love you,_ he whispers inside his head. _I love you more than anything. And I'm going to find a way back to you. No matter what._


	4. Darkness

Albus woke up to the gentle sound of an owl hooting. Groping around in the pitch black, he managed to pull himself up to the windowsill next to his bed and stare out into the seemingly endless night. Even though he couldn't see the bird, its low, methodical voice sounded close enough to be just outside his window. He imagined the owl watching him with its big yellow eyes, wild but tender, as he slowly drifted back to sleep, the soft hooting washing over him like a lullaby.

He jerked awake again a few hours later. It was silent. Eerily, terrifyingly silent. The kind of silence that makes you wonder for a brief moment if the rest of the world has disappeared and left you behind. Albus lay frozen in his bed, straining his ears for any semblance of a whisper. A soft creak from his mother's room down the hall, his brother's slow breathing in the room next to his, or the owl outside his window. His heart was pounding so loudly that he was sure everyone in the house could hear it. And yet, nobody came. Albus squeezed his eyes shut, the rapid beating in his ears drowning out the silence. It was so loud, in fact, that he didn't even notice the beating of wings and rustle of leaves just outside as he fell back asleep.

The third time he woke up, something was pecking his head. After a particularly painful poke near his left eye, Albus shot up to find Octavius, Lily's stupid toy owl, flapping its wings and hooting shrilly. He groaned and rubbed at his eyes, squinting against the bright sunlight, before getting out of bed and grabbing the little wooden bird. It continued to poke his hands and squawk, so far removed from the real owl that had lulled him back to sleep. He couldn't remember how to deactivate it, so he started prodding with his fingers and smashing it against the side of his bed, as nine-year-old boys are wont to do. He was about to march into his parents' room to demand that his dad fix the broken owl and punish James for leaving it in his room when, in Albus's fit of frustration, the owl suddenly broke into four pieces with a loud crack and clattered to the floor. Taken aback by the sudden lack of noise and feeling slightly guilty about breaking Lily's owl, he slowly bent to pick up the pieces.

And then he remembered.

Lily had taken the owl and kept it in her room after the night spent waiting for Harry, and seeing it again, now broken, brought all the memories of that night flooding back. He closed his eyes as his stomach began to ache with a strange combination of fear, frustration, and confusion that he wasn't sure he could even describe. And above that turmoil rested his mother's words.

 _Vanished off the face of the earth._

He picked up the broken pieces of the owl and padded downstairs to the kitchen. He wanted to glare at the cheerful light streaming in through the curtains for daring to be so happy. When he entered the kitchen, he found his mother already dressed and reading the Prophet as a cup of coffee poured itself. She looked up at him and smiled.

"Morning, love," she said. "Would you like a piece of toast?"

Albus nodded glumly and slouched down into a chair, picking at the grain of the table.

"Why are you already dressed?" he asked. "Are you going into work today?"

"Only this afternoon," she said. "I have to submit an article."

"Are we going to Gran and Grandad's again?"

"Only if you want to. I won't be gone for much longer than an hour, which I hope is short enough to keep you and James from completely destroying the house, so I think you're allowed to stay here." Her eyes twinkled as she handed him his breakfast, but she frowned a moment later.

"What's wrong, Albus?"

"Nothing."

"What do you have there?"

Albus ducked his head and pushed the broken pieces of Octavius onto the table.

"I think I broke it with magic," he said. "Can you fix it? I don't want Lily to be mad at me."

His mother took the pieces into her hand and muttered _Reparo._ The pieces fused back together, good as new. Octavius stared back at Albus with big yellow eyes. Albus pushed the owl to edge of the table and began to pick at his toast, no longer in the mood for breakfast.

"Al?" His mother's voice was searching, yet gentle and soft. "Do you want to tell me something?"

Albus looked up at her, his eyes pained and glistening. "Why didn't you tell us he was missing?" he asked in a small voice.

Ginny sighed. "Albus…" she rubbed her face in her hands before looking up at him again, her eyes pained. "I'm sorry for scaring you."

"It's not your fault," Albus mumbled, "it's Dad's for going missing."

"But I shouldn't have been so secretive with you. Honestly, I should have known you would find out on your own. Don't know what I was thinking, really. You three are just like your father- too nosy for your own good." She smiled fondly at him, but Albus could only grimace in response. "I didn't want you to worry, because I knew you were already scared. And I didn't have the answers to the questions I knew you were going to ask. I thought that if I pretended it was just a longer mission instead of something going wrong, you wouldn't have to spend all day being worried."

"But what happened to him?" asked Albus. "I want to know what happened!"

Ginny sighed again and reached for his hands across the table, holding them tightly. "I don't know," she said.

"Is he gonna die?" Albus blinked rapidly to keep any tears from spilling out, and his stomach dropped when he saw his mother doing the same.

"He's not dead yet," she said with a smile. "And knowing your father, I'd say it's highly unlikely. Now, why don't you finish your breakfast, then bring Lily her owl back and get dressed. I was thinking we could go flying for a bit this morning. Does that sound good?"

Albus mumbled in the affirmative, keeping his eyes locked on his toast.

"Albus, look at me." He slowly lifted his eyes. His mother gripped his hands tightly and smiled softly at him, though her eyes weren't twinkling like usual. "We're going to be okay, alright?" Albus slowly nodded and began to nibble at his toast, the knot in his stomach growing tighter every second.

xxx

After getting dressed, Albus, James, and Lily met Ginny at the backyard broom shed. A few clouds had started to gather over the horizon, but the sun still shone brightly, causing the little practice snitch to glint with fluttery flashes of light.

Lily, who was still on a training broom, spent the entire flight trying to catch the practice snitch with Ginny's help. James and Albus raced each other around the back garden, occasionally playing catch with the Quaffle. It felt strange to be flying without their father, but the feeling of the wind in their hair and the sound of the rustling leaves felt so natural and so _right_ that Harry's absence almost became an afterthought.

Albus didn't notice when the first drops of rain began to fall, but within minutes, the light drizzle had transformed into a steady downpour. Albus didn't mind. He actually liked being outside in the rain, even in the air. James did too, but he preferred to fly as fast as he could just to feel the sting of the raindrops on his face. Lily, however, hated flying in the rain, and she and Ginny had put their brooms away and taken shelter in the back doorway before the rain really hit.

"James! Albus! Time to come inside!" she called.

"Can't we stay out a bit longer, Mum, please?" asked James. "It's just rain!"

Ginny sighed quietly to herself. Under any other circumstances, she wouldn't have given in to their demands. But there was something about the way James had asked her that made her uneasy. It wasn't his usual endearing, yet infuriating plea for more. It almost sounded desperate, as though this time in the air was something he wouldn't be able to cope without. He might catch a cold up in the rain, but somehow, Ginny knew that the effects of keeping him on the ground would be so much worse. She wasn't about to make her children hurt more than they already were.

"Alright, fine!" she called. "Fifteen minutes- not a second more- and if you see lightning, come down immediately. Okay?"

"Okay! Thanks Mum!" called James, as he and Albus flew back out into the rain and Ginny and Lily watched from inside.

It wasn't until he was back on the ground that Albus remembered just how uncomfortable rain could be. He stood glumly at the back door, dripping profusely while Ginny cast a few basic drying and warming spells over him and James before sending them upstairs to change clothes. Now that Albus was back inside, every feeling that had been lifted and blown away by the wind began to settle back down upon him, finding their way into the pit of his stomach and his shivering hands and his rapidly beating heart. Somehow, it felt even worse than before.

Silently, Albus made his way back down the stairs for lunch, but the sight he found in the living room made him stop short. Lily was curled up in her mother's lap on the sofa, sniffling as Ginny ran her fingers through her hair. Ginny looked up and noticed Albus, beckoning him to come and sit next to her. He waited for a moment- because he was nine years old and could comfort himself now, thank you very much- but eventually gave in and curled up on the couch next to his mother. She wrapped an arm around him and kissed his head, and he melted into her warm embrace. Lily was still sniffling and mumbling words that Albus couldn't make out.

"I know. I miss him too, Lily," whispered Ginny. "And I know he misses all of us."

Albus scoffed quietly before he could stop himself. Ginny turned to look at him.

"What was that, Al?"

"Nothing," he mumbled, though he knew his mother wouldn't be fooled.

Luckily, he was saved by a distraction in the form of James, who was trying to sneak past the couch and into the kitchen without drawing attention to himself. Unfortunately, drawing attention to himself was something that James just did naturally, whether he wanted to or not, so he had no chance of escaping his mother's gaze.

"James," she said quietly. "Come join us, please."

"Do I have to?"

"James Sirius-"

James paused for a moment before reluctantly meandering over to the couch and plopping himself down on Ginny's other side. But despite his protestations, he wasted no time snuggling into her embrace.

Ginny hugged all three kids tightly, and they leaned into her in return.

"I know it's hard," she whispered. "But we're going to get through this, alright? We're going to get through this together. No matter what happens."

Nobody knew how long they stayed there on the sofa. They melded together as though they could close the aching hole in their lives by doing so, each too afraid to let go. Light from the lamp spilled across the room, but stopped short at the edge of the window as the rain hammered down from the cold, dark sky.

xxx

When the downpour finally turned into a trickle, Ginny left for the Ministry. She kissed each child goodbye, reminded them to stay out of trouble, put James in charge, and promised to be back in forty-five minutes.

As soon as she was gone, James made a mad dash for the door and was back on his broom in seconds, taking slow, relaxing laps around the garden while Lily watched from the grass below. Albus stayed inside, and after making sure that James and Lily weren't watching, he padded back down the hallway and slipped into his father's office, shutting the door softly behind him.

Technically, he wasn't supposed to be in the office alone. The room had been off-limits for his entire childhood, and he had only been allowed in when his father was there and happy to have company while doing some of his more mundane work.

Albus immediately looked for the cupboard under one of the shelves and opened it to reveal a collection of well-loved spiral-bound books with leather bindings, each one filled with moving photographs. Albus could sit in Harry's office for hours looking at the photograph albums as his father's quill and occasional mumbling serenaded him.

The collection had grown over the years; Harry had been forced to put an extension charm on the cupboard to keep all the albums in the same place. There were James, Albus, and Lily's baby albums, a book of pictures of Harry with Ron and Hermione at Hogwarts, a collection of press shots and personal photos from Ginny's Quidditch career, their wedding album, pictures of Harry and Ginny with Teddy, and a book of every Weasley Christmas Card since 1999.

But Al's favorite album was the oldest- a small, worn, leather-bound book hidden at the very back of the cupboard. Even though he wasn't technically supposed to touch this particular album without Harry's permission, he couldn't restrain himself from pulling it out and carefully running his hands over the crisp paper. A young couple waved up at him, beaming. He stared at the man's bright smile- so like his brother's, and the woman's green eyes- so like his father's. Only three years earlier, he'd sat with his father in this exact spot, staring at this exact picture. The memory came flooding back before he could stop it; he could still see the snow falling outside and feel his father's arm around him as they flipped through the photos, Albus asking every question he could.

 _"So that's Grandma and Grandpa?"_

 _"Yes. Those are my parents."_

 _"Oh. They don't look very old. Not like the pictures of Gran and Grandad Weasley."_

 _"No. They weren't very old."_

 _"Then why'd they die?"_

 _Harry closed his eyes for a moment._

 _"Albus, I'm going to tell you something really important, okay? Now that you're six, I think you can understand."_

 _"Okay…"_

 _"And it's a bit scary, so we can stop if you want, okay? Just tell me."_

 _"I'll be fine, Daddy. What's the story?"_

 _"Well, a long time ago, there was a very, very bad wizard…"_

He'd only heard bits of the story before that day, and listened with rapt attention as his father told the whole thing. Albus could still recall with perfect clarity exactly what Harry said after finishing the story.

 _"…and that's why I have the scar on my head. Because my mother died to save me, Lord Voldemort couldn't hurt me. He disappeared, and the war was over."_

 _"So did he die?"_

 _"Not exactly. But that's a story for another day. When you're a bit older."_

 _"But if he didn't die, does that mean he's still here?"_

 _"Oh, no. He's dead now."_

 _"Are you sure?"_

 _"Positive."_

 _Albus climbed into Harry's lap, and Harry cuddled him close._

 _"Are you positively positive?"_

 _Harry chuckled. "I am positively positive that Voldemort is dead and never coming back."_

 _"But- but what if there's another bad wizard? What if they try to kill you again? What if- what if they come after me and Jamie and Lily, like Voldemort came after you?"_

 _Albus felt his father tense for a moment, before relaxing and hugging Albus tightly, burying his face in his son's dark hair and kissing the top of his head._

 _"Nobody is coming after you," he whispered._

 _"But what if they did?"_

 _"Then I would do the same thing my parents did."_

 _"What? Die? You wouldn't fight them?"_

 _"No, no. Of course I would try to fight. But Albus, sometimes- sometimes you can't always win. But I_ promise _you, I would die before I let anything happen to you or Jamie or Lily. And so would Mummy."_

 _"But I don't want you to die," sniffled Albus. "I'd miss you. You miss your parents, and they've been dead since you were a baby."_

 _Harry hugged him even tighter. "I'm not going anywhere, Al, and I don't plan on dying for a really long time."_

 _"But what about your missions?"_

 _Harry sighed, methodically stroking Albus's back as the little boy continued to fiddle with his shirt buttons._

 _"I go out on missions to keep you safe, Al."_

 _"But_ you're _not safe." Harry paused. "Sometimes you get scars- "_

 _"Nah, those scars are nothing," said Harry, giving a little tickle to Albus's ribs. Albus giggled, and Harry's heart felt instantly lighter at the sound. "And I always come back, right?"_

 _"I guess."_

 _"And you know what else?"_

 _"What?"_

 _"I always will."_

Albus slammed the book shut, furiously blinking back the tears that had already started leaking out of his eyes. He shoved the album into the cupboard, slammed the office door behind him, and ran up to his room. He shut the door, crawled under his covers, and buried his now-wet face in his pillow, the flame in the pit of his stomach slowly growing into white-hot, crackling fury.

xxx

The Ministry seemed quieter than usual as Ginny arrived. Even though she knew that nobody but those who worked in Magical Law Enforcement knew Harry was missing, she couldn't help but feel that everyone was watching her, waiting for her to break down or lose it completely. It was a feeling that she was quite used to, after years of being both a famous athlete and the wife of the most famous auror in the world. She walked through the familiar hallways with her head down, trying her best to avoid catching anyone's eye, just in case they could see the anguish hidden just beneath her calm façade.

After turning in her article, she made a quick stop in the empty loo before going to the atrium to apparate. But as she was washing her hands, she heard the door shut and lock. Ginny whipped out her wand immediately and turned to face the intruder, and nearly dropped her wand in shock.

"Ellie! What are you doing?"

"Shhh! Keep your voice down! I'm relaying top secret information to you to make you feel slightly less awful."

"But-"

"Quiet."

"How did you know I was coming in?"

"I'm an Auror. Now keep your voice down."

Ginny obliged, but couldn't resist giving a slight glare. Ellie didn't seem to notice and continued with the story.

"We interviewed the muggle girl today. You know, the one that showed up by your parents' house with an Emergency Portkey? Anyway, Terry Boot from Obliviation reckons she was hit with a partial memory-removal charm. Unfortunately for us, she couldn't remember anyone's face, so we can't know for certain who tried to hurt her and who rescued her. But it all adds up, to me at least. Neither of the other aurors used their portkeys, and even though a team from Accidents and Catastrophes was there too, only one of them showed up without a portkey. Do you know Timothy Robbins?"

"No."

"Well, he works in Accidents and Catastrophes, but he's an idiot. I'd bet five galleons that he either lost his emergency portkey in the field or forgot it completely. And he's still out cleaning up after that fire, so there's no way to know for sure. That leaves one possible option."

Ginny sucked in a breath. "Harry."

"Right. Exactly. And it completely adds up because the girl was instructed to find what could only be your parents' house by the man who gave her that portkey."

"So why haven't you confirmed anything?"

Ellie sighed. "Because there's no definitive way to trace the Portkey back to Harry specifically. We checked his wand, and the last spell he used before he was disarmed was a stunning spell. So even if he had activated the portkey, there's no way to prove it. And there are…other reasons, too."

"Like?"

"Like the fact that, for all we know, he may have already been wandless by the time the portkey was activated. His wand was found just outside the woods, while the girl said he activated the portkey deep inside the woods. And then there's the obvious one- the fact that the muggle girl couldn't remember the faces of anyone she saw."

"But that doesn't prove or disprove anything," said Ginny.

"That's exactly what I said, but Liza doesn't want to jump to any conclusions."

"But she's the Deputy Head Auror! Doesn't she want to look like she's making some progress?"

"She'd rather not say anything than risk being wrong, _especially_ since this concerns Harry," said Ellie. "And we still know he's alive, so there's not much else to say at this point."

"So, basically you came here to tell me that nothing's changed since our last meeting." She couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice. Luckily, Ellie wasn't fazed.

"No, I came here to tell you that I think we have a rough idea of what happened to your husband before he vanished, no matter what our Deputy Head says."

"But why hasn't he called for backup yet? You and I both know he's too noble for his own good sometimes, but this doesn't add up."

Ellie stared at the floor and nodded. "Yeah. That's the part that worries me, especially since we know he's still alive." She fiddled with her wand as an excruciating silence descended upon the room. Several seconds passed before Ginny spoke again.

"What about the muggle girl? Is she going to be okay? Albus kept asking my dad about it at dinner last night."

"Yes, she's fine. She and her father are staying at the Ministry until their home is cleaned up. Then we have to remove their memories, convince them it was just a normal house fire got out of hand, and send them on their way." Another pause. "How are the kids taking it?"

Ginny sighed. "It's been hard. Especially for Albus and Lily. I just- I don't know what to say to them when I don't know what's going on! How am I supposed to reassure them? How am I supposed to tell them that their Dad's going to be fine when they know perfectly well that he's not, because if he was, he'd be home with us?" She felt tears building and found, to her horror, that she could barely hold them in. "I told Albus that everything would be fine today, and you should have seen the look on his face! I lied to him; I'm lying to my children, Ellie, and that's something I swore I would never do."

She couldn't speak anymore. Ellie quickly put an arm around her and grasped her hand.

"I know it's hard," she all but whispered. "But I have complete faith in Harry. He's one of the best Aurors the department has ever seen. And as dedicated as he is to his job, I know he's even more dedicated to you and your family. Just keep telling the kids that. Tell them that he'll do anything to make it back to you. And even if he- even if he doesn't, tell them that the people who love us always find a way back in the end. If not always in the way we expect. That's what my Dad told me and my siblings during the war, when they…took Mum." There was another long pause. "But Harry saved her. He saved us. I don't need to tell you what else he's done. I guess what I'm trying to say is that with Harry, there's always hope. And there always will be."

After another hug, Ellie unlocked the door and headed back to the lift. Ginny lingered for a few moments, then stepped outside into the empty hallway and slowly made her way down to the atrium. She stood still and watched for a moment as the Ministry windows displayed a brilliant early sunset, perhaps the last moment of peace for a long time.

xxx

The night passed, quick and uneventful, into the next day. Four days. Four days since Harry had gone missing. And yet, no end was in sight. The silence hung over the house, thick and heavy, its presence daring the inhabitants to break it before smothering their will to speak yet again.

James spent nearly all his time on his broom, flying in circles around the garden, only stopping for food and to make occasional funny faces at his sister. His attempts to cheer her up were fruitless. Lily's eyes never strayed from the living room window, and she never smiled. Despite Ginny's attempts to cheer them up, even enlisting Ron's help once again, the kids could not be persuaded to leave their bubbles of monotony.

Albus stayed in his room, holed up under his blankets as a lump settled in his throat and refused to leave. But he would not cry. His parents never cried, even when they were scared. Though he felt liable to vomit due to the terrible knot twisting and wrenching at his stomach, he let it grow. _He's not coming back,_ he thought. _He vanished off the face of the earth. Aurors die all the time, and come back permanently injured even more. He's not coming back. If you get your hopes up, you'll only be more disappointed. And then it'll hurt even worse than it already does. He's not coming back, he's not coming back, he's not coming back…_ He stayed there for hours, repeating the same thoughts over and over again, blinking furiously and rubbing his eyes until they were red and raw.

Dinner passed without any conversation, and the kids went immediately to bed. Ginny stayed up a little bit longer, but after a few hours, she decided that torturing herself with sleep deprivation wasn't going to be worth it.

But as she headed up to bed, she heard a sound coming from down the hallway. As she drew nearer, she could hear a faint whimpering creeping out from under the crack of James's door. Ginny silently pushed the door open, and her heart caught in her throat at the sight before her.

James lay on the floor with tear tracks staining his cheeks, clutching his stuffed black dog with all his might. The same stuffed black dog that James had claimed he was "too old for" over a year ago and had been sitting on the shelf above his bed ever since.

"Please," she heard him whisper. "Please, Daddy? Come home. I don't want to pretend to be brave anymore; come home."

Ginny's heart broke. It was such an intimate plea that she knew she shouldn't intervene, even though she wanted more than anything to march straight over to her son and pull him into her arms, all while summoning Harry with a quick wave of her wand. She knew her eldest son would want this moment to be private, for her to not know he had been crying. She hid behind the door, pretending she hadn't seen anything, and whispered, "Jamie?"

She heard him sit up quickly and frantically sniffle. "What?"

"I'm here, okay? I'll just be in my room if you need anything."

"Alright."

"Goodnight Jamie. I love you."

"I love you, too."

As Ginny continued down the hallway to her bedroom, she couldn't help but notice the layers of memories that had built up over the years, each one bringing a painful twinge to her heart. Her eyes wandered over the spot in the bathroom where she'd told Harry she was pregnant with Lily and watched his face light up with the same indescribably perfect joy that had accompanied the birth of each child, past the nursery (now Albus's room) that Harry insisted they paint the muggle way, past all the kids' rooms, where she'd seen him asleep on the floor after spending too long reading bedtime stories many a time, past the spot outside Lily's room where they'd had a terrible (and, in retrospect, fairly stupid) fight concerning James and a new broomstick, and finally, their bedroom. The place where they'd faced nightmares and breakdowns and moments of laughter and bliss. Where they'd held each other and later their children through stormy nights and Christmas mornings. The place that, in so many ways, represented their love more than anything else.

All of the memories came flooding back in a torrent so powerful that Ginny's vision blurred. She sank into Harry's side of the bed and buried her face in his pillow. And for the first time since receiving that horrible letter, Ginny allowed herself to cry.

xxx

It was three in the morning, and Ellie had been watching the map for four hours. Her eyes ached as she consumed mug after mug of coffee, never straying from the floating picture of blue and brown. She could see the distinct markings of each Auror, each targeted location, every individual the Auror department needed to keep tabs on for any reason.

All except one.

Ellie rubbed her face and held it in her hands for a few moments, closing her eyes to let them rest. One more hour, and she could go home. One more hour, and she wouldn't have to look at this godforsaken map until morning. She opened her eyes, and her entire body froze. She blinked, just to make sure that it wasn't a hallucination, that her wishful thinking hadn't just planted the image in front of her eyes.

But when she blinked, it didn't move. Ellie felt her heart rate increase with a thrill of cautious hope as she sent a patronus to Liza, her eyes never straying from the map. She looked just a bit closer to be sure it was the right symbol, in case she had mistaken it for something else.

She hadn't. Staring proudly back at her from the little spot on the map in the north of England, impossibly brighter than anything else in the room, its antlers defined and unmistakable, was a shining green stag.

* * *

 **A/N:** Unfortunately, this might be the last update for a while. I promise I will finish the story, though; hopefully by the end of the year!


	5. Fidelity

He had been walking for thirteen hours.

The trees blurred together in the darkness, indistinguishable to his tired eyes as he pressed on, his aching feet barely able to support his trembling legs. The light from the wand he'd stolen feebly lit the ground directly in front of him, casting the rest of the forest in an even darker shadow. A few crickets chirped here and there, breaking the otherwise deadly silence. Thankfully, he would be able to hear anything approaching, even though he hadn't slept well in ages and severely doubted his ability to respond properly to any threat. He pressed his left thumb against the pad of his ring finger, waiting for the tiny stag tattoo to appear. He'd repeated this gesture so many times in the last five days that it had almost become instinctual. Each time, he waited for the stag to heat up and glow, indicating that the other Aurors had received his call. Each time, nobody came.

Harry didn't expect this time to be any different. He'd spent days- or maybe weeks; he wasn't sure- locked in the cellar of a criminal headquarters without a wand, rubbing his fingers together incessantly to no avail. Each night, a mix of hunger, stress, and sheer stubbornness kept him awake, the pain from the burns on his hands and forearms providing ample support. He could hear the people he should have been arresting moving around upstairs while he could do nothing but wait in silence and hope for a miracle.

An endless barrage of questions rolled through his mind throughout the entire ordeal. How long had he been unconscious? Why weren't they answering his calls for help? What happened to Jane and Dennis, his mission partners? Did they escape? Did the townspeople escape? What happened to the little girl after he gave her his Portkey? What happened to his wand? Did the fire spread? What would have happened if he had gone back? If only he hadn't suggested separating the team, if he hadn't given up his only portkey, if he hadn't been stupid enough to get disarmed and stunned from behind…

What if he'd doomed them all?

The fact that he had miraculously managed to escape the house and incapacitate the felons provided little comfort as he trudged through the increasingly thick woods. He repeated his feeble plan again in his head, trying to ignore all the possible catastrophic outcomes. If he'd been wrong about the headquarters' concealment charm, if the sleeping draught and bonds didn't hold for long enough, if he lost the key to his plan (the little slips of paper threatening to cut the burned skin of his hand), if his calls for help could never be answered, what then? He could be trapped in this forest for ages, unable to apparate away without losing the location of the criminals forever. The other Aurors wouldn't know where to find him. They wouldn't even know he'd been trying to make it home. His family wouldn't know. _His family…_

As if on cue, another piece of paper jabbed at his leg from inside his pocket. Harry wiped at his eyes and moved forward with a newfound determination that only the little faces in that photograph could provide. _You promised,_ he told himself. _You promised them you would always come back. You're fighting for them, remember? All this pain, all this danger is to keep them safe._ He thought longingly of James's bright smile and Al's shining eyes and Lily's sweet giggles. The warm, familiar smell of home. And Ginny.

Of course, Ginny. The one person he'd thought of more than anyone else during his time in the cellar. What would she say? Would he even be able to look her in the eyes? After he promised that the uncertainty of the war would remain a distant memory, and not something that they'd need to repeat ever again? What would the kids think? Would they still greet him with their usual joyful shrieks and thundering feet and hugs that lasted longer than he deserved? James's eleventh birthday was coming up soon, and for all Harry knew, he might have already missed it.

Heart clenching, Harry quickly forced the thought out of his mind and quickened his pace. He rubbed the stag tattoo yet again, expecting the same nonexistent reaction. The light seemed to be fading as the trees closed in, forming a veritable wall of raking, scratching branches. The cold wind assaulted his skin, engulfing his entire body save for a faint spot of warmth on his fingertip…

Harry froze. He looked down, and, to his astonishment, he found his left thumb incased in a green glow. The small bit of warmth it created seemed to spread throughout his entire body. He stood in place, breathing deeply, as his hand found its way to the paper within his pocket to provide one last cautious thrill of hope.

The stag disappeared as Harry waited in the darkness, hardly daring to breathe. Ten minutes passed. Harry lifted the light, letting it spill over the tree branches as their shadows danced in the breeze.

CRACK.

Harry jumped as the familiar sound of apparition gave way to a shrill squalling that tore through the night air like a claw. He could just make out a set of shapes moving towards him in the shroud of darkness when the noise stopped as quickly as it began. He was about to call for identification when a familiar voice cut through the sudden silence.

"Where the _hell_ have you been?"

xxx

Harry nearly sank to the ground in relief as his colleagues approached. Ellie, who had shouted, rushed forward alongside Liza, the Deputy Head Auror. Following them, thankfully unharmed, were Harry's mission team, Jane Dorsett and Dennis Creevey, as well as two other Hit Wizards. Jane, Dennis, and the Hit Wizards spread out, casting the standard revealing charms and protective enchantments. Liza and Ellie approached Harry, the light from their wands glinting off of Liza's large glasses. Harry moved forward as fast as his legs would take him, but Liza reached him first and pointed her wand straight at his chest.

"State your name," she clipped, her eyes locked onto his.

"Harry James Potter, Head Auror. Wife of Ginny Potter and father to James, Albus, and Lily Potter."

"What shape is your Green Call marking?"

"A stag."

"Did you knowingly and willingly activate a Green Call within the last thirty minutes?"

"Yes."

"Hold out your left thumb, please."

Harry did as he was told, and Liza pressed her wand to his hand, twisting it and muttering. The green stag began to glow once again, and Liza stepped back, satisfied. Then she noticed the burns on Harry's hands for the first time, and her eyes widened.

"Cattermole, dittany! Now!"

"Already on it," said Ellie, producing a small bottle and applying it to Harry's burned hands and forearms. A pleasant cooling sensation washed over Harry's skin, and he sighed in relief.

"You're still going to need to go to St. Mungo's for those," said Liza. "They look like Fiendfyre burns, and those spread without proper treatment. Any other injuries to report?"

"Just minor cuts and bruises that I already cleared up with my own dittany. I used up the rest of it on these burns. It was originally just my hands."

Ellie winced in sympathy. "Any seized items or physical evidence?"

Harry withdrew four stolen wands and gave them to Ellie, who deposited them in a tiny blue bag modified with an Extension Charm.

"The rest is all at the Headquarters, if my plan to get there works. Oh, by the way-" he said, watching the rest of the group finish securing the area –"what day is it?"

Liza's face paled. "It's Wednesday, June 24th," she said. "2015."

Harry let out a sigh of relief.

"Why? What happened? Were you unconscious?" asked Liza.

"Yes, but we'll get to that later. Right now I've got four suspects incapacitated and I don't know how long the Sleeping Draught will hold, so we should get going."

"Ahem," said Ellie. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Harry turned to look at her as she pulled something out of another bag. He sighed with relief as she passed him his wand, the familiar feel of the wood warming his hand.

"Thank Merlin," he said. "Where'd you find it?"

She grinned. "I'll tell you later. We've got criminals to capture."

By then, the rest of the team had assembled. Jane and Dennis in particular watched him intently, as though he might disappear again. All of his questions bubbled up towards his lips, but he managed to repress them. There would be time to talk and go over the reports, later. Right now, he was the leader of the task at hand. Fighting through a building headache and his sore body, he looked up to face the team.

"Right," he said. "Now, I don't know if this will work, but it's the only plan I have. I'll tell you all the details later, but right now, I need each of you to open these papers, read them, and then burn them."

He discreetly handed them the papers, taking great care not to read them. As glowing scraps of paper fluttered down to the ground, he turned around, bid his team to follow, and started walking.

Nobody talked for the next thirty minutes as they walked in sync through the dense woods. Once Harry felt that they were sufficiently removed from their original meeting place, he spoke.

"It was the Fidelius Charm," he said. "I think that's why the Green Call wasn't working while I was in the cellar. Anyone within its confines is untraceable, so we're going to have to fix that at Headquarters. Now, I don't know how they did it, but they managed to make the charm extend past the building, so all this forest is protected as well. And it goes on for ages; I was walking for half a day before my Green Call worked."

"And how are we supposed to get there now?" asked Dennis. "We don't have twelve hours. We can't apparate since none of us know where it is, and we can't use a Portkey, either."

"Well-"

"I've got an idea," said Jane. She dug around in her bag until she found seven small and slightly bent sticks. She murmured an incantation, and the sticks grew into broomsticks complete with a cleverly disguised _M_ on the handles. Jane turned to Harry and smiled. "I know Ministry brooms aren't quite up to your usual caliber, Potter, but they should do for now."

They rose above the trees and set off with Harry in the lead. He kept the pace fairly slow, just in case they spotted anything unusual on the ground. Nevertheless, they managed to reach their destination just after sunrise.

A large manor house dominated the horizon. The burgeoning sunlight glinted off the arched windows framed by creeping ivy and covered the stone walls in a glow that Harry knew didn't match the sight inside.

"Can everyone see the house?" he asked, waiting with bated breath in case his plan to reveal the secret had failed. Thankfully, everyone nodded in agreement. "Alright," he said. "Inside the building are all four suspects, including the ringleader."

Dennis gasped. "All four? Even Bordel?"

"Even Bordel," said Harry, grimacing as he thought of facing the black-eyed ringleader again. "Bordel, Boyle, Dahlton, and Evers. All four suspects should still be bound and under the effects of a Sleeping Draught. However, in case the effects have worn off, we will be operating according to standard entry and capture procedure." He drew his wand. "Let's go."

xxx

Some time later, Harry awoke to find late afternoon sun streaming through a window and his body supported by a surprisingly comfortable bed. As he blinked groggily in the blinding light, he could just make out the whispering voices accompanying the wood-paneled walls and strangely acidic scent of St. Mungo's.

He sat up immediately, ignoring the ache that shot thorough his body. A pair of strong hands immediately pressed him back down into the mattress.

"Not so fast, Mr. Potter," said a deep voice. Harry immediately recognized it as belonging to Healer Craft, one of the Healers specifically assigned to work with Aurors. He looked around the blurry room, fully disoriented.

"Where…what time…when…?"

"Give him the glasses," said another, more familiar voice.

Harry felt someone slide his glasses onto his face, and soon the entire room came into view. Healer Craft and Ellie were sitting at his bedside, while Liza was sitting at a table at the other end of the room, surrounded by papers. Harry looked down and noticed that the burns on his hands were virtually invisible, though a web of faint scarring still showed ever so slightly- a jarring image against the pristine white of his hospital gown.

He sat up straight, heart pounding.

"Where's my uniform?"

"Sent away for cleaning," said Ellie. "Don't worry, we kept your picture."

She handed him the worn photo of his family, and he drank in their smiling faces.

"We were just about to owl them now that you're awake and stable," said Ellie.

Harry spun back to face her.

"Don't, please," he said. Ellie's eyes widened in confusion.

"Don't…tell your wife you're alive? When I know for a fact that she's been worried sick?"

Harry rubbed a hand over his face. "Just- don't tell them I'm here. I don't want them to have to visit me in hospital again. I…I don't want them to be any more worried than they already are."

Ellie raised an eyebrow. "Well, then we'll send them an owl to let them know we found you," she said. "We'll just say they can't visit yet."

"Which is technically true," said Liza. "We haven't finished your report yet, and until that's done, you can't lose your secrecy status."

Harry groaned. "If you'd have just let me deal with the temporary hold at Azkaban, I could have finished the report there-"

"Don't be ridiculous," said Liza. "You could barely stand up from exhaustion, not to mention the fact that you need to have a clear head to do the report anyway. And I handled the arrests just fine, thank you very much."

"I wasn't insulting your leadership skills," said Harry. "When's the trial?"

"I scheduled it for Saturday," said Liza. "10:00."

"Brilliant. Let's get on with the report, shall we?"

After giving Harry a potion that tasted like burnt rubber, Healer Craft left the room. Ellie summoned a piece of Liza's parchment and a red quill. The quill floated above the paper, poised and ready to catch Harry's every word.

"Right," said Ellie. "First of all, you're going to have to describe how you ended up wandless in the headquarters of Dark Wizards in the first place."

"Well…" Harry sighed, replaying the events of the past five days over in his head, trying to organize them into coherent thoughts. None of it really seemed to make much sense in hindsight. Not the fire, or the duels, or the Fidelius Charm, or the portkey…

"Wait!" Harry snapped his eyes over to Liza, who was watching him intently. "There was a little girl…I gave her my portkey…"

To his relief, Ellie smiled, but not before firing a strangely triumphant look at Liza. "She's alright," she said. "We found her on Sunday."

"But it was a serious breach of protocol," said Liza. Harry sighed.

"I know, but I didn't have another option. You'll know why in a bit." He turned to Ellie. "Where was she?"

"In a field a few miles from your wife's parents' house. One of your kids found her. Al, I believe."

"Al found her?" Harry's heart soared at the mention of his son's name, and his face broke out in a grin. Despite knowing that his house was heavily protected and his family perfectly safe when he went away on missions, there was some undeniable comfort in knowing first hand that while he was away, his children were still going about their normal lives while they waited for him. _Merlin, he missed them._

"Yes, Al found her," said Ellie. "He and Arthur Weasley brought her to the Ministry, where she got treated for her burns with the rest of the muggles."

"Was the fire that bad?"

"You can read Dorsett and Creevey's reports tomorrow for the details. But for now, yes. It was that bad."

Harry sighed. "I should have done something-"

"Well, Liza and I would love to know just what you _were_ doing at that particular time. The girl's fine, you're fine, so let's finish this report."

"That's a very long story…"

"You can start at the moment you and the team separated," said Liza.

"Right," said Harry. "Since we'd already managed to track down one of the suspects, Boyle, to the middle of the town and had good evidence that the actual headquarters was somewhere nearby, I decided to split the team. I sent Jane to go after Boyle, Dennis to wait outside as backup and deal with the muggles, and I went off on my own on the outskirts of the town to pick up any hints about the headquarters. We planned to meet at a specified location outside town in one hour.

"When I was on the outskirts of the woods next to the village, I noticed a little girl- wait." He looked up at Ellie. "What was her name? I didn't have time to ask and I felt terrible."

"Rebecca," said Ellie. "We found her dad too, with the other muggles."

Harry sighed in relief. "That's great to hear. I was so worried about her-"

"As well you should have been," said Liza. "We'll be discussing that incident once you finish the story. Carry on."

Harry was used to and respected Liza's no-nonsense attitude, especially when it came to muggle safety. Still, he couldn't help glowering her way just the tiniest bit before continuing his report.

"I was in plainclothes for secrecy," he began, eying Liza warily in case she decided to interrupt, "so I didn't think to hide myself from her. To be honest, I don't think she saw me until I found her in the woods. I saw her run into the trees maybe ten meters in front of me. I thought she might have been playing a game, even though nobody, and I mean _nobody_ else was around. Then I saw the fire."

"Did you and your team have a backup plan in place?" asked Liza.

"Yes, we had a designated meeting place should things go sour, but neither Jane nor Dennis had sounded an alarm yet," said Harry. "I was about to go back into town and find out the situation with the fire, but the little girl running into the woods was making me uneasy. And then I heard a Caterwauling charm go off from inside the woods. Somehow, I just knew that the little girl had something to do with it and that it probably meant danger. I trusted Jane and Dennis to sort out the fire situation and went into the woods.

"About a minute later, I found Evers, the second suspect we had on our list, with his wand to her head. He looked like he was in the middle of a memory-removing charm. I stunned him, but our third suspect, Dahlton, was right on our tail. He was about ten seconds away, so my priority was to get Rebecca out of the way. I took out my Emergency Portkey, set it to go to the fields outside Ottery St. Catchpole in ten seconds, and told her to run.

"By this time, Dahlton was practically on top of me, and we began to duel. Somehow, we managed to move back to the outskirts of the woods close to town. I managed to stun him, too."

"So that's why we found your wand outside the woods," said Ellie. "But how did you manage to lose it?"

"I'm getting to that. You know Boyle, the original suspect that Jane and Dennis were after? Well, he showed up out of nowhere and disarmed me literal seconds after I'd stunned Dahlton. That got me really worried about Jane and Dennis, but of course, I didn't have a wand."

"You do have fists, though," said Ellie.

"I didn't get a chance to use them," said Harry. He looked over at Liza. "What did Jane's report say? Why didn't she catch Boyle before the fire?"

Liza shuffled some papers around before pulling out an envelope marked 'confidential.' "Since you didn't have an exact location, she was still tracking him when the fire started."

"Do you think he knew we were on to him and started the fire as a diversion? I didn't hear them talk about that at their headquarters."

"Well, part of me hopes it was a diversion, because the alternative is setting a muggle village on fire just for the sake of it. On the other hand, somehow catching top-secret Aurors isn't much better."

Harry sighed. "So I'm guessing that as soon as the fire started, they stopped looking for Boyle and focused on getting the muggles out."

"You'd be correct," said Liza. "Magical Accidents and Catastrophes got there almost immediately, but the fire had nearly engulfed half the village. Luckily, they got all the muggles out relatively safely, and we fixed them up at the ministry."

"How long were Jane and Dennis helping get the muggles out?"

"Not too long. Accidents and Catastrophes had it under control pretty quickly. But by then, they'd lost any track they had on Boyle, and you hadn't contacted them." She flipped through some more pages. "Jane says here that she and Dennis met up at your meeting location well outside town, and since you hadn't shown up and didn't respond to their requests for contact- after an hour of trying, mind you- they called off the mission and contacted us. We started looking for you immediately."

"How long did you duel Dahlton?" asked Ellie.

"Not too long," said Harry. "It can't have been more than two minutes."

"And you said Boyle disarmed you immediately afterwards?"

"Yes."

"So you and Boyle were long gone before Jane and Dennis even tried contacting you."

"Sounds about right," said Harry. "Anyway, before I could even process what was happening, Boyle grabbed me and apparated directly to their real headquarters. As soon as we got there, something knocked me unconscious- probably a Stunning Spell, by the feel of it, and from then on I lost track of time."

He paused, watching Ellie and Liza carefully. The quill finished scratching out the last sentence, then hovered and twitched over the parchment.

"I didn't know you could apparate into a Fidelius-protected area," Ellie finally said.

"I think you can if you're in on the secret," said Harry. "I didn't dare apparate out after I got free, though, just in case I wouldn't be able to find the Headquarters again."

"How did you get free, then?" asked Liza.

"Well, you've got Boyle to thank for that," said Harry, chuckling slightly. "First, he didn't even take my wand after disarming me; second, he didn't bother to check my pockets before dumping me in the cellar; third, he didn't stun me _before_ apparating; and fourth, they didn't even try to kill me! They actually brought me food and water after I came to; they didn't even knock me out again or erase my memory."

"Did you eat anything they gave you?" asked Liza, eyeing him closely.

"No, of course not. Well, actually I did have one glass of water, but I used my last poison-detecting capsule in that."

Liza nodded. "Can you describe what happened after you came to?"

"Yes. First of all, I didn't know what time it was, because the cellar didn't have any windows. I wasn't even tied up or anything, which was very strange, but the door was locked and enchanted. The only times it opened were when Boyle brought bread and soup down twice a day. I refused to eat, of course, and I couldn't do anything without a wand."

"Did they try to force you to eat at all?"

"No, but they had fun punishing me for it. Honestly, they tried almost everything short of the Cruciatus Curse. That's also how I got burns on my hands."

Liza winced in sympathy. "So how did you escape?"

"Well, on what I'm assuming was Tuesday afternoon, they sent their House Elf down to bring me lunch instead of Boyle. Her name was Pipsy. Anyway, as soon as I saw that it wasn't someone armed with a wand, I went to take the plate of food and escape. She wouldn't give in, though; she was freakishly loyal to them. Anyway, I tried to convince her to help me out, but she wouldn't. So I, uh…knocked her out with a blow to the head." He winced, trying to sink down past the bed and into the floor. "Please don't tell Hermione."

"She's at a two-week conference in New York right now, so I doubt she'll be handling Pipsy's case," said Liza.

"And she might forgive you, considering Pipsy was complicit in a top-level crime against muggles, not to mention kidnapping Harry Potter," added Ellie.

Harry sighed. "Anyway, after taking care of the elf, I went up the stairs to eavesdrop. I looked over the entire house, found their workshop, and listened in on their conversation. That was where I learned about the Fidelius Charm. They were looking for new recruits, and to prepare, Bordel had written the location of Headquarters on a bunch of slips of parchment for Boyle to give to the new recruits. Since Bordel was the Secret Keeper, I'm assuming he didn't want to leave the house.

"About an hour later, Bordel left the room, and I had a clear shot. I somehow managed to sneak up on Boyle, tackle him, grab his wand, and constrain him. Bordel, Evers, and Dahlton came in after hearing the commotion, and I took out each one of them."

"Wow," said Ellie. "How long did that take?"

"Less than five minutes. Though Boyle's complete lack of fighting ability helped. Once they were all petrified, I gave them a strong Sleeping Draught that I found in one of the storage rooms, stole the pieces of parchment with the location of the house on it, and started walking. I walked for…probably about thirteen hours or so. I couldn't apparate, since I didn't want to lose the location."

"So you walked?"

"It's not like I had another option. I didn't have a broom or a Hippogriff or anything. And I knew that I didn't stand a chance of being found unless my Green Call was working, and it didn't work until you found me. And that's that."

The quill hovered over the paper as a silence once again settled over the room, interrupted only by the faint noises coming from the rest of the hospital.

"So…" said Harry, since Liza and Ellie seemed unwilling to talk, "I think that about covers everything. I'll be at work the day after tomorrow to start going over all the reports before the trials-"

"We still need to talk about your breach of protocol," said Liza.

Harry brought his hand, which had been hovering over the button to call Healer Craft, back down to his side slowly. He sighed. "What do you want me to say, Liza? I know I broke the rules; I knew it at the time, too. But I didn't have any other options."

"You had a designated meeting spot far removed from the fire," said Liza. "You should have gone there."

"But I didn't know that it was safe at the time," said Harry, sitting up straighter. "I didn't know that I wouldn't be bringing a little muggle girl into the middle of a fire."

"And sending her off with a magical device to a mysterious place _on her own_ was a better option," Liza said dryly.

"Look, if I could have sent her to the Ministry with that Portkey, I would have," said Harry, who was starting to get irritated.

Liza took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. "You _know_ why we can't do that anymore. That safety measure was partially your idea anyway. And it hasn't been a problem until now." She sighed and looked at Harry with softer eyes. "I know why you did it. I understand. But it's our job to keep civilians safe."

"And it's also our job to capture dangerous criminals. Or would it have been better if I had just abandoned the two dangerous wizards in the woods?"

"That's not what I'm saying, Harry. All I wanted to say was that you should have considered taking her to your meeting place. You saw the fire, didn't you? You should have seen that it hadn't reached your meeting place yet. You could have endangered her life."

Harry sank back down in the bed and put his hands over his face. "I know, Liza. I know. But seeing her there, with a _wand_ to her head….I just- I just snapped. I wasn't thinking clearly, not that I had much time to think. I just knew that I had to get her out of there. There wasn't time to contact anyone…I just…she could have been hurt, or worse, and I…I can't be responsible for that again."

A heavy silence settled over the room. Liza and Ellie knew exactly the case Harry was referring to, and they weren't keen to relive those memories. After an agonizing moment, Liza spoke up.

"That was years ago, Harry, and it wasn't your fault," she whispered gently. Ellie shook her head in solemn agreement.

"But don't you see why I did it now?" asked Harry. "Whenever there are kids in the field, I just…"

"We know, Harry," said Ellie.

"Not entirely," said Harry. "Neither of you have kids of your own. She couldn't have been much older than Al…"

"We still know why you did it," said Liza. "You'll have to do a separate report on it later, since it was a breach of protocol committed by the Head Auror, no less, but I think we can be done for the day."

"And speaking of your kids," said Ellie with a smile, "we should get you cleared to go home."

Heart leaping at the mere mention of the word, Harry let out an exhausted, yet relieved sigh. Healer Craft came back and, after half an hour of diagnostic spells and another dose of potion, Harry was free to go. For the first time in a month, his heart didn't feel at all heavy as he looked down at the four faces in the picture. _They probably got the owl and are waiting right now,_ he thought. He nearly tripped in his haste to get to the hospital Floo system, thinking of nothing but the smiling faces in the picture and how close he was to seeing the real ones.

xxx

Dinner was not going well.

Despite Ginny's best efforts to produce a decent home-cooked meal despite having inherited very few of her mother's talents in the kitchen, none of the kids were hungry to begin with. Al had been holed up in his room all day, trying to avoid James's attempts to lighten the mood of the house by teasing everyone in sight. Things got out of hand a few times, leading to multiple shouting matches, one instance of accidental magic and a headache for Ginny that refused to go away. And dinner, evidently, wasn't going to help.

"Al, for the love of Merlin, if you keep playing with your food instead of eating it, you're going straight to bed with no pudding."

James and Lily had at least attempted to eat something, but her middle child seemed determined not to follow their example. Albus glared at his mother from across the table and continued to pick at his already shredded chicken breast. Ginny glared straight back.

"Don't make me count, Albus." More glaring. "Alright, fine. 1, 2…"

Albus quickly shoved a piece of chicken into his mouth and chewed with more vigor than necessary, his furious eyes never leaving his mother's. Ginny sighed.

"Al, what's the matter?" she asked, trying to use her gentlest voice. "Look, I know you miss Dad…"

"It's. Not. That," said Albus, who was now stabbing his chicken with his knife. James watched with a teasing grin on his face.

"The bird's already dead, Al; you don't need to kill it anymore," he said.

"I _know_."

"Then why do it? Got anger management problems or something?"

"James," Ginny warned, as Albus slammed his knife down with a fleeting glare at James and resumed picking at his food with his fork. Ginny sighed again.

"What's wrong, Al?"

She knew that Harry's absence and James's ramped up teasing in the past few hours were the primary culprits, but she knew not to say anything in front of James. After a few moments of the same sullen silence, Al spoke.

"Can I go to my room?"

James failed to stifle a snort. After sending a warning look his way, Ginny turned back to face her middle child. She'd been expecting the question. Normally, the kids were not allowed to leave the table until everyone had finished eating, but Ginny could tell that her youngest son would soon be on the verge of tears. At that moment, she almost felt like joining him.

"Al, you've barely touched your dinner," she said. "You've eaten hardly anything all day."

"I'm not hungry."

"Are you sick?" He didn't look up.

"I dunno. Maybe," he murmured.

"Are you absolutely sure you don't want anything to eat?" Ginny asked, her voice gentle. Albus shook his head.

"Well, then I guess you can go to your room. I'll be up to check on you in a little bit, alright?" Albus nodded, keeping his face turned towards the floor. As he got up to leave, James attempted to change the subject.

"Will Dad be back for my birthday, d'you think?" He asked, fiddling with his fork more than necessary and avoiding his mother's eyes. Ginny caught the slight waver in his voice anyway.

"Well," she said, "your birthday is July 7, which is about two weeks away. Do you think he'll be back after two entire weeks?"

"How long's he been missing for right now?"

"As of right now? About five days."

James bit his lip in thought. "Well, even if he doesn't get back by my birthday, I think he'll for sure get back by the time I leave for Hogwarts."

Ginny smiled. "I know he wouldn't miss that for the world."

Al turned around from the kitchen doorway and looked up. "But what if he's-"

"Don't you dare say it, Al!" cried James, standing up so fast his chair tipped over and hit the floor with a crash. Lily jumped in her chair, startled by the outburst.

"You don't even know what I was going to say, stupid!"

"Yes I do too! You were going to say that Dad's de-"

"BOYS!" shouted Ginny. Albus and James froze. "Can't you be civil for five minutes? Your fighting is giving me a headache and I'm sick of it! We're all sad, we're all frustrated, and arguing with each other isn't going to make us feel better, alright?"

"But-"

"What did I just say, James?" snapped Ginny.

James turned to her, outraged. "But Al started it! It's not my fault he doesn't even _want_ Dad to come home-"

Ginny's voice nearly reached the volume of Al's angry cry. "James Sirius Potter, that's _enough!_ Go to your room! Right now!"

"But _Mum-_ "

"Nope. I've had it. Get upstairs _now._ "

James fumed up the stairs after Albus, stomping as loudly as he could and rattling the railing. After both bedroom doors had been slammed shut, Ginny turned back to Lily, who was looking down at her plate and sniffling. Ginny reached over and brushed the hair out of her face.

"Sorry about that, Lily-lu," she said, unconsciously using Harry's nickname for their daughter. "Thank you for behaving. Are you finished?"

Lily nodded.

"What should we do now?"

Lily's head snapped up, and the tears in her eyes glistened in the evening sunlight.

"I don't want to do anything until Daddy comes home!" she cried. "Why isn't he home yet?"

Ginny sighed and rubbed her temples. "I've told you a million times that I don't know, sweetheart. I hope it will be soon. We just have to be patient."

"But I don't _wanna_ be patient anymore, Mummy! I'm tired of being patient! I want Daddy!"

"Well, what can we do to take our minds off of it?" Ginny asked, though she wanted to cry, too.

"I don't know!" said Lily. She slumped down in her chair. "I'm too sad to think of anything."

"What about a book?"

"We've _read_ all the books. And I want _Daddy_ to read to me."

"Oh, come on, I'm not that bad, am I?"

Lily faltered, looking moderately guilty. "Daddy does the voices better," she said at last. Ginny couldn't argue with that.

"Well," she said, "if we can't do a story, why don't we play a game? Here, come over to my side of the table."

Lily obliged, accepting her mother's hug and kiss.

"And since your brothers won't be coming downstairs for a while…"

Lily grinned. "We can play whatever I want and you can make the chess set purple and I can play with the pieces and Jamie and Al can't tell me not to!"

Ginny laughed. "Exactly. Now why don't you go fetch the chess set while I check on your brothers, okay?"

Lily nodded and scampered off.

Smiling softly, Ginny waved her wand and sent the dirty dishes flying into the sink before heading into the living room towards the stairs. She would check on James first, ask him to apologize to his brother, and make sure he hadn't accidentally destroyed something in his anger. And Al… _what to do with Al?_ Ginny sighed and sank down onto the sofa, turning to face the empty fireplace. She knew the answer, of course. But she didn't know if said answer would ever return.

The sun would set soon, for the fifth time, and no amount of pleading could stop it. She watched the golden light filter through the windows- a bittersweet glow that seemed to illuminate everything in the house. Not a sound came from upstairs or down; she figured Lily must have gone to the toilet. The silence was deafening, even as Ginny forced herself to stand and turn towards the stairs.

All of a sudden, the Floo roared to life, sending in a rush of warmth that filled the room. Ginny froze, trying to brace herself for the inevitable disappointment against the waves of hope and anticipation surging through her. She expected anyone- Ellie, Ron, her parents- anyone except the one person behind her right now, whose breathing she could recognize anywhere. The one person who always made the same sounds when stamping Floo powder out of his shoes. The one person who could whisper her name in the tenderest way imaginable, that sometimes sounded astonished, as though he himself couldn't believe he was actually saying it. Heart racing with something that could only be described as pure, unbridled joy, she quickly turned to face the fireplace.

Harry, exhausted, bedraggled, but undeniably alive, was standing right in front of her.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'M SO SORRY! (kind of) First, for taking so long to update, second, for kind of a long chapter with a lot of explanation, and third, for ending on yet _another_ cliffhanger because otherwise this chapter would have been _way_ too long and would have taken even longer to upload. The next/final chapter will be up by the end of January for sure, so you shouldn't have to wait quite as long. You'll see why I felt I had to split it into two parts. Please leave a review; they make my heart happy.

Also, I know my explanation for the Fidelius Charm was kind of iffy and not exactly canon-compliant, but the charm wasn't super well-explained in the books, either, so I've just tweaked it a bit.


	6. Home

They didn't speak. They didn't need to. After only one moment of incredulous, joyful disbelief they were moving, colliding, their arms around each other and their lips locked together, intertwined so tightly that neither could tell where one of them ended and the other began.

Harry could have stayed like that forever, breathing in Ginny's flowery scent and running his hands through her satiny hair, her mere presence providing a comfort so specific and so powerful he almost couldn't bear to let her go. Ginny held him tightly, as if to support him lest he suddenly collapse to the ground. In that moment, Harry wasn't sure whose ordeal had been more difficult. He held her just as tightly, trying to pour all his pleas for forgiveness and feelings of guilt and relief and above all, love, out through his embrace. He could feel the same feelings radiating off of Ginny and held on even tighter.

Much too soon for Harry's liking, Ginny pulled back. He gazed into her blazing eyes and smiled. Ginny smiled back, still gripping the front of his robes. Then she looked down, sighed, and looked back up at him.

"Harry."

"Hm?"

"Please don't take this the wrong way, but what the hell are you doing here?"

Harry faltered for a second. "Well, I would _like_ to be kissing my gorgeous, wonderful wife and the three beautiful children we made together…and it's also my house…"

"No, Harry, I'm serious. One minute you've vanished off the face of the Earth, and then you're here! In the living room! With no warning whatsoever! Merlin, your department won't tell me anything!"

"Didn't you get Ellie's owl?"

Ginny looked at him as if he had grown another head. She began to explain when they were interrupted by a loud thud at the kitchen window. Harry's face paled.

"Oh no."

"What? What is it?" asked Ginny as they headed into the kitchen. Harry immediately spotted the dull brown lump on the windowsill and heaved a long sigh. He opened the window to reveal a small owl that looked more like ball of barely-held-together feathers than a bird capable of flight.

"Hey, Stewie," said Harry. The owl briefly opened its eyes, then returned to playing dead. Harry turned to Ginny.

"Stewie's been an owl for our department since before Al was born," he said. "I've been telling them to stop using him for two years now since he flies like a feather duster that someone chucked into the sky, but I only managed to get him relegated to non-urgent messages. We only kept him because some of our junior Aurors made a gigantic fuss when I proposed sending him to a different department. No wonder you didn't get the letter." He pulled the Ministry letter from Stewie's talons and opened it. "Apparently, I'm safe and will be arriving within a few hours."

"Impressive," said Ginny with a smile. "Earlier than Ministry time. I don't think that's ever happened before."

She was being sarcastic, obviously, but the words carried a hint of truth that only became more apparent given the present situation. Harry felt the guilt bubbling up in his stomach again. After giving Stewie an owl treat and sending him on his way, Harry turned back to his wife.

"I'm sorry, Gin. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," she said. "You're here now, aren't you?"

"Yes, but I should have been home days ago. I never-"

"Shh," said Ginny, pressing a finger to his lips. "We'll talk later. Right now I just want to be happy you're home."

They kissed again, letting a wave of pure contentment wash over them. Ginny pulled back when they finished.

"A month without a snog and Mr. Potter's still got it," she said, her smile impossibly bright. Harry was too tired for banter, so he merely laughed and pulled her back against him, resting his head on top of hers.

"I love you so much," he said, relieved that he could finally voice those words to her again, no matter how sappy it sounded.

Ginny hummed in agreement into his shirt. "I missed you," she said. "We all did."

"I missed you more," he said. "Speaking of, where are the kids?"

"I can't imagine they didn't hear the Floo," said Ginny, leading him back into the living room. "Maybe they-"

They had barely stepped into the living room before they heard a squeal accompanied by a flash of red hair.

"Daddy! DADDY!"

The chess game fell to the floor with a clatter as the youngest Potter came flying into her father's open arms. Harry lifted her up and hugged her as tight as he could, trying to ignore the lump forming in his throat and the burning in his eyes. Lily clung to him just as fiercely, burying her face in his shoulder as he swayed gently back and forth.

"Hey Lily-lu," he whispered into her hair. "How are you? Were you good for Mummy while I was away? Did you keep those brothers of yours in line?"

Lily nodded.

"That's my girl," he said, kissing her cheeks and nose and smiling at the sound of her giggles.

It didn't take long for another little voice to sound throughout the house.

"Mum? Mum! Where are you? Was that the Floo? Is Dad home?"

After the sound of thundering footsteps in the upstairs hallway, James's face appeared at the top of the stairs. He stopped short, and despite the obvious redness around his eyes, his face broke into the biggest grin Harry had ever seen him wear.

"DAD! I knew it! I knew it! I was right! I knew you'd come home! When'd you get here? Mum, you have to tell me these things!"

Harry barely had time to set Lily down before James nearly tackled him with a bear hug. Laughing, Harry swept him up into his arms as James held on tightly, any desire to remain the cool eldest sibling forgotten.

"I missed you," he whispered into Harry's ear, so quiet that nobody but Harry could hear.

"Oh, Jamie, I missed _you_ ," said Harry, kissing his temple. To his absolute astonishment, James didn't even try to wipe it off.

As he slowly released James back to the ground, Harry looked up at the stairs, eagerly waiting for his third child to appear. But despite James and Lily's noisy shouts and running, no one came. Harry turned to Ginny.

"Where's Al?"

"He's in his room," said James, keeping his arms wrapped around Harry's waist. "I told him to come out when I thought I heard the Floo, but he wouldn't. I don't know what his problem is."

Ginny shot a warning look at James before meeting Harry's eyes and slightly glancing upstairs. Harry nodded and released himself from James and Lily's clinging arms. He walked upstairs as quickly as he could, trying to ignore the feeling of uneasiness growing stronger every second.

xxx

Harry knocked gently on Al's closed door. "Al? It's me. I'm home. Can I come in?"

No answer.

"Al? You okay?"

Silence.

"I'm coming in, okay?"

When he didn't receive any immediate protestations, he slowly opened the door. The bedside lamp was off, leaving only the slatted rays of late afternoon sunlight washing the room in a dark orange glow. Al was in the shadows, curled up on his bed with his face to the wall. Harry swallowed. That was never a good sign. Years of being Albus's father had taught him that if Albus appeared to be upset, but was remaining in plain sight on his bed instead of hiding under the covers, he wasn't sad. He was angry. Harry momentarily considered retreating back into the hall to let his son cool down before deciding against it and moving to sit at the foot of Al's bed. The mattress dipped slightly with Harry's weight, but Al made no indication that he noticed. Not even when Harry placed a hand on his calf.

"Al? What's the matter?"

No response.

"Al, please talk to me. I really missed you."

Albus made an almost imperceptible noise that, to Harry's ears, sounded like a scoff. Perplexed, Harry shifted his position on the bed so he could more easily put a hand on Al's shoulder. Albus shrugged it off and buried his face in the quilt.

"Albus," said Harry, trying his best to keep the hurt and irritated edge from creeping into his voice. "Tell me what's wrong. Please." Albus mumbled something into the quilt. "Sorry, what was that?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing, hm? Well, if nothing's wrong, why are you acting this way?"

More incoherent mumbling.

"Albus, I'm not leaving this room until you tell me what's wrong."

Albus buried his face deeper into the mattress. "As if you would care."

Harry stared at his normally quiet and sweet little boy, almost too shocked to be angry. "What do mean, 'as if I would care?' I haven't seen you in a month, Albie, I missed you."

Albus didn't respond.

"Albus, look at me."

"No."

" _Look at me."_

"No!"

"Albus Severus-"

Before he could finish, Al sat up and turned around, and the last sliver of the relief and happiness that Harry felt upon returning home immediately vanished. Al's face was red and blotchy from crying, but now he only glowered at Harry with an intensity that Harry didn't even know nine-year-olds were capable of. For a moment, Harry looked down at the floor, avoiding his son's eyes and racing through multiple plans of action before settling on the one that would hopefully do only minimal emotional pain. He looked up and met his son's identical eyes once more.

"Why are you upset, Al?" he asked. Albus merely crossed his arms and avoided Harry's eyes. "Was it something I did? Are you mad at me?"

A barely perceptible nod.

"Why are you mad at me? Are you mad I didn't come home on time?"

After a few moments of silence, "You shouldn't have left in the first place" barely managed to slip out of Al's tightly closed mouth. Harry sighed.

"It's my job, Al, you know that."

"Well, your job's a stupid job."

"Albus-"

"It's a stupid, stupid job!"

"Albus!" Harry was starting to lose his patience. He took a deep breath to steady himself. "Albus. I don't know what's brought this on all of a sudden, but you know why my job is important. There are a lot of bad wizards and witches in the world, and I have to stop them from hurting others. And yes, sometimes I have to leave-"

"I thought you weren't coming back!"

The words stunned Harry into silence. While Albus wasn't shouting yet and was trying his best to look away from his father's eyes, Harry could hear his son's voice trembling.

"You were supposed to _be here!_ " Albus cried, blinking furiously. "You were supposed to be here five days ago! Five days! I waited for you for five days! You were gone for almost a month and nobody even told us anything! I thought you were _dead!_ "

The words tore through Harry like a jagged knife. Albus sat across from him, breathing heavily, his eyes shining with constrained tears as he stared into his father's face. Harry tried to say something, but Albus didn't let up.

"And you keep making excuses; you always say you'll be fine, but what if you're not fine? And you always say that you'll always come back, but you know what? Some people don't come back and you and everybody else knows it! And your parents are already gone and I don't want you to go away too and-"

Al's lip trembled ever so slightly, and Harry couldn't take it anymore. Without thinking, he reached over and pulled Albus into his arms. He fully expected Albus to push away or wriggle out of his arms or even hit him. But Albus didn't. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Harry's chest, buried his face in his shirt, and began to sob.

Heart aching, Harry cradled his son's head to him and rubbed his back as Albus let out a torrent of fright and relief and anger into his chest. Harry didn't know how long they stayed like that- Albus crying and Harry holding him as though he could somehow ease all of his son's fears just by doing that. As the sobs began to die down, Harry kissed the top of Albus's head and held him even tighter. For a moment, he nearly started crying, too.

"I'm sorry, Al," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"I don't… I don't want you to leave," sniffled Albus, his voice intermingled with hiccups. "I don't want you to go away again; don't leave."

"I'm not going to leave you," said Harry. "I'm _never_ going to leave you."

"But you _did_ ," said Al. "You left for a long time and you almost didn't come back."

Harry paused for a moment.

"I was just doing my job, Al," he finally said.

"But _why?_ Why do you have to have a job where you have to be dangerous all the time and get hurt?"

"I'm protecting people, Al. It's important to me. I love my job."

"But what about us?" said Al in a small voice. "Don't you love us?"

Harry's heart shattered. He held Albus to him as tightly as he could and buried his face in his son's messy hair. His eyes burned, and he blinked to keep the quickly welling tears at bay.

"Yes," he breathed. "More than anything else in the world."

"Then why do you have to go away?" Al asked as he wiped his face. His voice was desperately vulnerable.

Harry held Albus to him so tightly he worried for a moment that the boy might break. "Because I don't want the dark wizards I deal with to be anywhere _near_ you. If someone ever so much as touched a hair on your head-" He stopped short, terrified to even think about the possibilities. Evidently, Albus didn't want to either, because he burrowed even closer into Harry's embrace.

"I don't want them to hurt you, either," Al said. "I don't want you to go away like your dad did."

Harry gave him another squeeze, then took a deep breath and pulled back, using his calloused thumbs to brush the tears away from Al's blotchy face.

"Al? Hey, look at me." Al slowly turned his head to face Harry, and two sets of glistening green eyes met. "I'm sorry I scared you. I don't ever want you to worry about me, okay?" Al nodded as more tears leaked out of his eyes. Harry brushed them away again. "And about my father-" he took a moment to collect himself- " _your dad_ isn't going away anytime soon. Not if I can help it."

"Do you promise?" asked Al in a small voice. "Daddy, do you promise?"

Harry gazed into Al's imploring eyes and knew that there was only one answer.

"I promise," he whispered as Al's arms wrapped around him again. "I solemnly swear it."

xxx

Much later, after kissing the boys goodnight, reading Lily a grand total of five bedtime stories before she fell asleep in his lap, and spending some passionate and much-needed time alone with Ginny, Harry lay facing his wife in bed, twirling a strand of her hair in his fingers and watching the red and gold streaks shimmer in the moonlight. Ginny's eyes were far away, staring into the distance over his shoulder.

"Hey Gin?" asked Harry.

"Hm?"

"How do you…really feel about me being an Auror?"

Her eyes drifted down to his bare chest, where she gently brushed the locket-shaped scar over his heart.

"Why do you ask?"

"Just…thought I'd ask for your opinion."

"Is it because of what Al said?"

Harry stopped twirling her hair. "How much did you hear?"

"Not a whole lot…" Harry raised his eyebrows skeptically. "Alright, fine, I came up to eavesdrop right away."

Harry chuckled and poked her side. "And you say _I'm_ the one who can't mind his own business."

"Oh, shut up."

Harry grinned and kissed her. "Love you."

"Love you too. Now about Al…"

Harry turned onto his back and sighed. "I feel terrible, Ginny. Honest to God, I feel like the worst father ever."

"Well, you're not, so I'm going to stop you right there."

"I had no idea he felt that way. I mean, one time he mentioned being nervous about my missions, but that was years ago and he hasn't said anything since. Not even last year when I got that nasty cut."

"To be perfectly honest with you Harry, I didn't either. He was so excited to see you come home and was probably more upset by the whole thing than James and Lily, but I thought that was just Al being his usual sensitive self. I didn't realize it went this deep."

Harry sighed and ran his hands over his face. "He thinks I'm abandoning him, Ginny. He thinks I'd rather go off to die on some mission than stay here with you. And honestly, he's got a point. I guess I've always been so afraid of losing you- of losing our family- that I never thought about you all losing me. I must be the most selfish person in the world."

"That's absolute rubbish and you know it, Harry. I don't actually think it's possible to be less selfish than you."

"Al doesn't think so. He hates me."

Ginny scoffed. "Al is a nine-year-old kid, Harry. He's smart, but he misses you when you're gone like any kid would. And he most certainly does not hate you. He fell asleep in your arms tonight. He hasn't done that in five years."

The surge of affection Harry felt for his son quickly turned into a sour heartache. He turned his face away from Ginny so she wouldn't see the wetness at the corners of his eyes.

"I feel like I've failed him, Ginny. And James and Lily. And you. All I want is to be a good dad and keep our kids safe and happy. That's all I've ever wanted for them. And if you saw some of the awful stuff that I see nearly every week, the stuff I see done to children- kids, Ginny! Younger than ours. Every time it happens, all I can think of are Jamie and Al and Lily. It's bad enough that it happens to anyone, but if it happened to any of our kids…Ginny I don't know how I would live with myself."

The tears were flowing freely now, something that never happened in front of anyone but Ginny. Harry ignored his choked-up throat and pressed on.

"But…but if something happened to _me_ in the field…" He broke off, wiping his eyes. "I can't let our kids grow up without a father, either. And I miss you all something terrible when I'm away. I just- I don't know what to do."

He felt Ginny's arms pull him into an embrace and felt instantly more at ease within her flowery scent. He couldn't count the number of times over the years that her arms had held him, calmed him, reminded him that he was no longer a little boy alone in a cupboard. After a few moments of silence interrupted by Harry's sniffling, Ginny spoke.

"I'm not going to lie, Harry. I get scared when you leave, too. I was terrified when you went missing. But I know that you can't sleep at night unless you're saving people and fighting for good. I knew it when I was fifteen and I know it now. And I love you for it."

"So you don't think I should quit my job?"

"I think you should do what you think is best for you. Of course I hate seeing you get hurt, but honestly, seeing you sulk around the house, unhappy and bored out of your mind because you can't be off fighting evil might be even worse. But if you really don't want to be Head Auror anymore, I'm not going to stop you. You've got all day tomorrow to think about it. Maybe we can come up with a compromise. I know McGonagall's asked you about teaching at Hogwarts."

"I don't think I want that job quite yet. Five lectures a year is plenty, and I don't think our kids would appreciate it much. I was thinking more along the lines of full-time Auror trainer or even head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in a few years."

Ginny nodded. "Both good options. And you'll have time to mull it over. Now get some rest. The kids will want to play with their hero all day tomorrow."

She smiled at him again, pure and warm and genuine. Harry leaned over and kissed her, smile to smile, his heart overflowing with relief and joy that his family was home and safe, and that, at least for now, he was too.

xxx

Though Harry had been in the Minister's office many times since Kingsley Shacklebolt had occupied it, he still couldn't help being impressed by how grand it was. The office windows looked out over the bustling atrium and the massive wall of windows surrounding it. The big windows were charmed to look like a sunny sky today, something Harry hadn't seen in weeks.

He paced Kingsley's office, stealing a glance every few seconds or so at his watch. The sooner he could meet with Kingsley, the sooner he could get back home. He and the kids hadn't yet finished their Exploding Snap tournament, and there was no way he was letting James take the championship for the second time in a row. A deep voice from the doorway quickly snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Harry. How many times do I have to tell you that you're allowed to sit down in my office?"

"Sorry, Kingsley. I was just…just…how's your day been?"

Kingsley shut the door and strode over to his desk, gesturing for Harry to take a seat.

"Oh, no more hectic than normal, really. The Durham situation is entirely under control with no muggle casualties and minimal property damage."

"Oh, that's great to hear."

"Have you checked the reports from your own office yet?"

"Not yet. Tomorrow. Liza won't let me come in."

"A wise decision," said Kingsley. "You need a break to relax and spend some time with your kids." He paused. "How did they take it?"

Harry looked down at the floor. "They were pretty cut up about it, according to Ginny. Regular missions are hard enough, but this one was so much longer, and then-"

He didn't want to say too much. Kingsley nodded.

"I see. I bet it scared them, didn't it?"

Harry nodded.

"When I was an Auror, I remember working with plenty of team members who were also parents. I know it's not easy."

Harry nodded again.

"And speaking of your kids, I'll try not to take too much of your time so you can get back to them."

Harry looked up, gratefully. "And I'll try not to take too much of your time, either."

"Oh, don't worry about me," said Kingsley, smiling. "Making sure kids get to see their father is much more important than running the Ministry." Harry smiled sheepishly. "So, how are your injuries?"

"I'm feeling much better, actually," said Harry. "A little sore this morning, but no pain at the touch or anything like that."

"Excellent. Now, about your little breach of protocol…" Harry sighed. He'd been dreading this moment. "Liza gave me the full report, and in this case, I don't see any need to take disciplinary action. In fact, Ms. Cattermole came up with a new proposal to allow Emergency Portkeys access to established safe houses to prevent more situations like these. You'll be able to look over that tomorrow."

"Well, you see, about that…"

"Yes?"

"I'm actually considering…resigning."

Harry expected Kingsley to look at him in shock, but no expression crossed the Minister's face.

"And why is that?" Kingsley asked.

"I…I've decided not to be an Auror anymore. Not to put myself in danger like that. For my kids' sake. And Ginny's. And mine, I guess. I can stay for three more weeks, though I think Liza's been ready to take the position since she stepped foot in the office. But I'm not doing another raid. Never again."

"I see. Well, Harry, unfortunately I can't let you resign."

"What? Why not?"

"Because I'm promoting you."

Harry stared ahead in stunned silence for a moment before coming to his senses again.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Promoting you."

"Promoting me? To what?"

"Well, as it turns out, we have a vacancy in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"I hope you don't just mean my position."

"Oh, no. I mean the head. Of the entire department."

"Wait- Hutchins resigned?"

"She handed in her two-month notice last week."

"And you want me to take her place."

"Of course. You've done a fine job leading the Auror Department. I have plenty of faith in you."

Harry looked away from Kingsley and focused on the grain of the wooden desk, trying to calm the nervous energy racing through him.

"Don't you think I'm a little young? I mean, I have considered Head of the DMLE, but as a prospect for far in the future, not before I hit forty at least."

Kingsley sighed. "Harry, I made you the youngest Head Auror ever. No, I don't think you're too young to lead the whole department. Not only that, but it'll be perfect for you. You'll still be able to go out in the field to visit crime scenes, but never overnight. You won't be in nearly as much danger, and never again under top secrecy. The only times you might need to spend the night away from home for work will be overseas conferences, and the hours won't be quite as unpredictable."

Harry looked up into Kingsley's eyes again, and a mutual understanding passed between them.

"Please consider it, Harry," he said. "I actually spoke to Ginny earlier today, purely by coincidence, and I happened to mention that you were one of the candidates for the position. She told me she'd be okay with you taking the job, as long as it's what you really want."

Harry fiddled with the sleeves of his robes. "I'm still not sure. It sounds great, but I'm a bit nervous about the hours…"

"You'll have every Christmas and September 1st off for as long as you have the job. Guaranteed."

Harry stood to shake Kingsley's hand. "Then I accept whole-heartedly."

xxx

Upon arriving home, Harry immediately made a dash for the kitchen, thankful that the kids were occupied elsewhere and therefore didn't have the opportunity to ambush him. Ginny was standing at the sink, drying the dishes in preparation for dinner. Trying to stay as quiet as possible, Harry quickly wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck, smiling as she gave a startled jump, then relaxed into his arms.

"How did the meeting go?" she asked him, lacing her fingers through his.

"Well," he said, pressing a kiss to her collarbone, "My new job isn't quite as sexy as Head Auror…"

Ginny turned around so quickly that they almost lost their balance. "You took the job? You're Head of Magical Law Enforcement now?"

Harry grinned and nodded. "Well, after a couple months, anyhow."

"That's fantastic!" she cried, flinging her arms around his neck. Harry hugged her back and kissed her, lifting her off her feet in the process and slowly spinning around.

"I'm a bit nervous about what the kids will think," he said when Ginny's feet were back on the ground.

"Oh, they'll come around," she said. "Besides, it's partially because of Al that you even made this decision, right?"

"Yeah, though I was starting to wonder if being an Auror was worth it the minute I disappeared."

Ginny wrapped an arm around his waist and squeezed. "Well, I think it's a good decision. Why don't you go tell the kids while I finish dinner? Oh, and by the way…" she leaned in close to his ear as he went to leave the kitchen, "I happen to find you incredibly sexy even without the Auror robes."

Harry waggled his eyebrows, albeit in a decidedly unseductive manner, and Ginny burst into giggles. _Later,_ he mouthed with a wink, causing Ginny to laugh even harder.

xxx

James, Al, and Lily were sitting together on the living room floor going through their chocolate frog cards. Harry almost didn't want to interrupt them, since all three children interacting amicably was such a rarity, but he managed to make his way over to their little huddle and sit on the floor in front of them.

"Guys, can you stop fiddling with the cards for a second, please? I have something important to tell you."

Al's eyes snapped up first, searching and anxious. James and Lily, though notably less on edge, still carried a look of uneasiness.

"You're not going on another mission, are you?" asked James, as if daring Harry to answer in the affirmative.

"No, James. I'm not going on another mission. In fact-" he paused, watching their faces for any sign of relaxation- "I have a new job altogether."

That got a reaction. James looked slightly disappointed, Al looked perplexed, and Lily just asked, "What kind of new job?"

"I've been promoted to Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. That means I'll be in charge of all the Aurors and all the Law Enforcement Officers and all the Investigators, and, well, basically anyone who works on the second floor of the Ministry."

Lily gasped. "Even Grandad and Aunt Hermione?"

Harry chuckled. "Yes, even Grandad and Aunt Hermione. And that means-" he continued, watching Al's skeptical face carefully- "that I'll be working in an office most of the time. I won't have to go out on missions, I won't have to capture bad guys by myself, and I'll never be gone overnight for very long, if ever. Basically, I'm still in charge of catching bad witches and wizards, but I'll be a lot safer now. So you shouldn't have to worry about anything…like what just happened…happening to me for a long time."

There was a short pause before Al said, "So you're not going to be dangerous anymore?"

Harry looked into his son's eyes and shook his head. He waited a moment while his children processed the words, ready to answer any questions. Then, with almost no warning, Al flashed a brilliant grin and leapt into his father's arms so forcefully that Harry ended up on his back on the floor, arms tightly wrapped around his middle child.

"Are you okay with that?" he asked, chuckling. Al nodded into his chest.

"Hey, no fair! Why does Al get the only hug?" said James. Harry was about to comment that there was no such thing as an only hug when he felt James fall quite heavily on top of Al. The latter let out a sound somewhere between a cry of annoyance and a laugh, while Harry grunted in surprise. Lily quickly tried to follow suit and jump on top of her brothers, but didn't quite succeed and ended up snuggled into Harry's side instead, giggling uncontrollably.

"You guys are getting too big for this," said Harry as he tightened his arm around James and Al, though he didn't actually mind at all. It had been months since he'd held all three children at once, and he wasn't about to let the opportunity go to waste. Time moved much too quickly, the minutes infinitely precious.

It wasn't long before the final member of the family arrived in the living room, although the childish giggles had already faded into quiet, contented sighs. Ginny gently tapped the side of Harry's head with her socked foot, and he tore his eyes away from the pile of suddenly sleepy children on top of him to look up at her, his face breaking into a radiant smile.

"Alright there, Potter?" she asked, her smile just as bright.

"Yeah," he whispered, glancing once again at Al's shining eyes. "We're alright."

 _The End_

* * *

 **A/N:** Happy New Year everyone! My gift to you all is this (kind of) fluffy happy ending! I hope it made up for all the angst in this chapter (and I guess the rest of the story). Harry and Albus's argument scene was actually a single idea that I had back in April when I started thinking about how Harry's job as an Auror might affect his family, specifically his kids. Believe it or not, this story was originally going to be a one-shot just focusing on Harry's return and the fallout. As you can see, I got a bit carried away. :)

Anyway, thank you _so much_ for all the encouraging reviews and follows and whatnot; receiving them always makes my day (hint hint). I'm planning some more stories centered around Harry as an Auror, so keep your eyes open!


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